An Inspiring Legacy: Sophia J. de Vries

In honor of the 150th anniversary of Alfred Adler’s birth, the author offers a character sketch of one of Adler’s most productive students, Sophia J. de Vries. She was the inspiration and guiding intellect behind The Collected Clinical Works of Alfred Adler and the training sequence for certification as a Classical Adlerian Depth Psychotherapist. Having worked with de Vries for more than 30 years, he shares personal anecdotes that imprinted on him the kind and encouraging spirit that de Vries experienced from Adler. The author recalls de Vries’s insightful case conceptualization, creatively individualized treatment plans, and relentless pursuit of the client’s psychological movement away from an inferiority feeling and toward a fictional goal, all of which have become hallmarks of the depth-psychotherapy expression of Alfred Adler’s therapeutic legacy.