Introduction to the Neo-Adlerian Approaches to Psychotherapy Special Issue, Part 1

Alfred Adler becomes more and more correct year by year. As the facts come in, they give stronger and stronger support to his image of man.

Abraham Maslow

I have always read and accepted that Sigmund Freud was the founder of modern psychotherapy. As I have evolved in the therapy profession, I have become aware that this claim is wrong, as much of what happens in contemporary psychotherapy has very little to do with Freud (Carlson, 2015). As I explored this fact a little more, I realized that when Freud allegedly created modern therapy in Vienna, a group of others was in attendance. One of the group members was Alfred Adler. He, not Freud, was selected by the group as their president. Adler had been invited by Freud to join the group in 1902. According to Mosak and Maniacci (1999), Adler published a strong defense of Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, and consequently Freud invited Adler over on a Wednesday evening for a discussion of psychological issues. The Wednesday Night Meetings, as they became known, led to the development of the Psychoanalytic Society. In 1911, Adler left the group and formed the Society for Free Psychoanalytic Research. It has been said, tongue in cheek, that the “free” meant “free from Freud.” Adler’s society soon changed its name to Society for Individual Psychology. The focus of this new group included the acknowledgment that human functioning was not only biologically based but also powerfully influenced by social, familial, and cultural factors. In a 2015 article, I wrote that Adler was the originator of contemporary psychotherapy, while my friends John and Rita Sommers-Flanagan (2012) wrote of Adler, “He’s like a man from the future who somehow landed in the middle of Freud’s inner circle in Vienna” (p. 79). For several years I have been fortunate to study the work of Adler and to have realized that he was probably a man from the future and the actual father of psychotherapy. In this special issue of The Journal of Individual Psychology, several of my Adlerian friends and colleagues have joined me in determining just how accurate this realization is.

The contributors to this special issue have been invited on the basis of their knowledge of Adler as well as at least one other area of therapy. In their articles they were asked to discuss the similarities and differences between the two and to determine whether the approach came from Alfred Adler. Both cases—whether any similarities came directly from Adler or were discovered on their own—still serve as a validation of Adler’s ideas. It is hoped that it will become clear that most contemporary theories and approaches are actually neo-Adlerian and not neo-Freudian. A great debt is owed to Alfred Adler and his early collaborators. In his historical overview of psychotherapy, or what is called the “talking cure,” Peter Bankart (1997) claimed that “Adler’s influence on the developing fields of psychology and social work was incalculable” (p. 146).

For many years I was aware that most of the strategies and techniques used today can also be used or integrated by Adlerian therapists. It was not until I was developing this special issue that I realized why. It is because they may have actually been taken from Adler or that the approaches are similar enough that they are compatible.

Albert Ellis (1970) stated, “Adler strongly influenced the work of Sullivan, Horney, Fromm, Rogers, May, Maslow and many other writers on psychotherapy, some of whom are often wrongly called neo-Freudians, when they more correctly could be called neo-Adlerians” (p. 11). Many of the previous issues of The Journal of Individual Psychology highlight the great impact he has had on their approaches. In the works of Buddha and Jung there are abundant similarities with Adler’s work. Many of today’s theories seem to have taken or borrowed one or more components of the Adlerian approach and to use those components singly as a complete approach. Some of these approaches emphasize thinking, others feeling, and others actions...