An Interview with Eva Dreikurs Ferguson: Reflections on a Lifetime of Individual Psychology

During the NASAP conference at the DoubleTree Hotel on May 22, 2015, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the co-editors of The Journal of Individual Psychology were honored to be able to conduct an hour-long interview with one of the most internationally recognized professors in the field of Individual Psychology, Eva Dreikurs Ferguson. A variety of topics were discussed in the following interview, including insights on what it was like growing up with her father (Rudolf Dreikurs), her educational experiences and research, and her experiences with a number of famous professionals with whom she has associated during her illustrious career.

Interviewers: Roy Kern and William Curlette

Bill:

You have been one of the most influential professionals in the field of Individual Psychology. Yet, Roy and I know very little about how you began your career, and how your journey has brought you to this stage of professional expertise. Could you tell us a bit about your journey and life to this point?

Eva:

Sure. Actually, that would take a long time [laughs]. I wrote out some comments, because as I thought about it, I realized I did so many things it would take a long time to talk about it. But, let’s be brief. The first thing, as both of you probably remember, I lived in my dad’s house, and that provided a tremendous variety of experiences. It is important to note, not only that my dad talked about psychology and the philosophy that he had on a regular basis, it was part of the everyday conversation in our house. Also, he had many people that he had correspondence with. In some cases they became part of my life by the fact that either I got introduced to them or they were in the house. Do either of you remember the semanticist Hayakawa? Does that mean anything to you?

Bill:

No.

Roy:

Afraid not.

Eva:

Ok, well, he came to dinner, for example. He was a very influential person in the field of semantics, in which he was trying to show the social meaning to communication. And then another time I was at an APA convention and my father introduced me to Abraham Maslow, who was at the time the president of APA. So these were just parts of my life—it’s not a normal family [laughs]. You have to remember I didn’t grow up in a normal household [collective laughter]. You know, I remember reading something from one of the Kennedy children about his mother, who was one of the Kennedy sisters, and she had developed the Special Olympics, and after her death, he wrote: “I just thought that everybody had hundreds of people coming to swim at the family pool. I thought that was normal.”

Roy:

So that’s what it was with you—these well-known people would just come into the house and you’d be introduced.

Eva:

Or they’d be part of my dad’s life. You need to remember that as a young person I heard my father talk about the conflict in physics, and the whole role of Neils Bohr, Einstein, and the one that my father was so strongly in favor of, Heisenberg, and his principle of uncertainty—I don’t how much you two know about that. Do you know anything about Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty?

Bill:

Yes, I do.

Eva:

My first husband had a physics PhD colleague and I requested of him: “Please explain to me the way a physicist would talk about Heisenberg,” because my dad had talked about Heisenberg from a psychological point of view, not from the perspective of a physicist. My dad thought that the uncertainty principle was ”the answer to psychiatry.” I wanted to know how a physicist would explain the principle of indeterminism, which my dad considered basic to psychological life. A physicist’s explanation revolved around measurement confounding, but my dad interpreted the principle as a counter-argument to objective perception or apperception in psychological processes, that is, when you are a participant in...