Respecting Differences: Theoretical Variance Between Adler and Dreikurs

As part of the inauguration of the annual International Conference of Individual Psychology (https://individualpsychology.net), the authors were invited to revisit a 30-year-old published discussion on the psychological tenet of primary human motivation: whether Alfred Adler, the founder of Individual Psychology, and Rudolf Dreikurs, one of his well-known students and expositors, agreed on this tenet. The article makes several contributions to the theoretical discussion. It provides context for reintroducing the original discussion and its assertion that a substantial theoretical difference exists between Adler and Dreikurs. It highlights the published denials of this difference, and it offers a methodology for supporting or refuting the denial of any difference between the two men. The authors briefly explore why acknowledging Dreikursian formulations as different from Adlerian formulations is important and clinically useful.