The unconscious for Adler and preparation for life

For Adler, “All psychic phenomena can be considered as preparations for a definite goal… a constant preparation for a future in which the individual’s desires are fulfilled”.

Hello friends!

Today we are going to continue our Course on the work of Alfred Adler. In the chapter entitled “Preparation for life”, Adler presents his main arguments regarding some important themes for his individual psychology. These topics that we are going to deal with in this lesson are: toys, attention and distraction, the unconscious, dreams and intelligence.

The toy

As we have seen in previous lessons, individual psychology always evaluates an individual’s childhood. And, as in childhood, playing is an important activity, it is necessary to think about what a child’s way of playing consists of.

The author says:

“You can see in all toys the preparation for the future. The way in which the child surrenders to the toy, the choice of it, and the importance in which it is given, indicate an attitude towards the environment and the way in which it establishes its relations with other individuals. Whether it is a belligerent and hostile child, or a loving and friendly one, one tends to command, so we can see from his toy: by observing the child in his games, you discover whether his fundamental attitude towards life” (ADLER , p. 98).

Those who study child psychology and work with clinical psychology for child care will certainly agree with this perspective. It is easy to observe in the children’s clinic how children choose their toys based on their way of relating to others and to life.

In the text, the author emphasizes two fundamental aspects of playing games. These two aspects are: sociability and competition.

“Observing a child at play, we can assess with appreciable accuracy the quantum of his feelings of sociability”, and, further on: “The target of dominance or superiority, another obvious fact in play, is betrayed by the child’s tendency to to be the commander, the captain, the boss” (ADLER, p. 98).

Attention and distraction

Nowadays, much attention has been given to what the DSM-5 calls Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), which we have already talked about in this text – Is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder a lie?

Although Adler is historically located long before the creation of ADHD, some of his thoughts are interesting so that we can criticize the over-diagnosis that has been given, in addition to the medication of a supposed disease without a defined cause.

Adler says: “All human beings have the capacity to pay attention” and “The most important factor for awakening attention is a real and deep interest in the world (ADLER, p. 100). For the creator of individual psychology, the fact that a child does not pay attention in a class, for example, is just an indication that interest was not awakened.

A simple tip that we can use (with success) is present in the following sentence: “It is easy to observe how the child’s attention is immediately captured when it comes to focusing or recognizing its importance (ADLER, p. 101). ), that is, we can stimulate a child’s interest and attention by noticing their being and giving relevance to their individuality.

If we stop to think about it, we will see that most children enjoy the first years of school very much. The interest seems to decrease with time, as the relationship with the teachers is distanced. In the beginning, the teacher is attentive to each student and praises their efforts (“Congratulations”, “Excellent”, “Wonderful”) and then the praise is replaced by demands for grades and criticism of low grades.

To end this topic, Adler says: “It is not right, therefore, to say that someone is not able to concentrate. One can prove the perfection that this person is very capable of concentrating, but always on something other than what is observed… be adopted” (ADLER, p. 101).

the unconscious

In the chapter “Preparation for life”, this is one of the most important topics for those who want to learn about their psychology. As the book is rare, I share with you the main excerpts from this part of the chapter:

Adler says:

“We will be able to look for and find a pattern of a man’s behavior in the unconscious. In your conscious life we ​​can only find a reflection, a negative of this pattern. A vain woman is generally unaware of her vanity, most of the time when she manifests it; otherwise, she would proceed in such a way that she only appears modest in the eyes of others” (ADLER, p. 103).

And in the quality of what is conscious or unconscious, he presents the hypothesis of two classes of subjects, those who are more aware of themselves and those who are less: “Human beings can be classified into two types: those who know more things than than the common of men about their unconscious life, and those who know less, that is, according to the extent of the sphere of their consciousness. In a large number of cases, we coincidentally observe that an individual of the second type concentrates on one sphere of activity, while those of the first have a wide circle of activity of great interest in men, things, facts and ideas (…) first-class students live a more conscious life, look at life’s problems more objectively, without cataracts in their eyes. Those of the second class face life full of conceived preconceived ideas and only see a small part of it” (ADLER, p. 104-105).

However, although some are more aware of themselves, the awareness of who one is is also not unrelated to misconceptions: “In the successes of life, we will often discover that an individual is unaware of his own aptitudes, for being estimated at less than Valley. We will also discover that he lacks true guidance with regard to his deficiencies: he considers himself a good man, when in reality he does everything inspired by selfishness; or, vice versa, he considers himself an egoist in situations where a more rigorous analysis will show him to be a good man” (ADLER, p. 104).

Like Freud, Adler also foresaw that in the process of making content unconscious there was the process of repression: “There are certain ideas that we cannot keep our eyes on, not only because of others, but also because of ourselves (…) It is a universal human phenomenon that everyone lets themselves be carried away by ideas that justify their attitude and reject those that might prevent them from moving forward. for them. What is useful to us in argumentation, we bring to consciousness; and that can disturb it, we push to the subconscious” (ADLER, p. 109).

About dreams, Adler defines: “The dream, moreover, evidences the way in which the dreamer’s thought process manifests itself, as well as reveals the pattern of his procedure. The dream is comparable to a column of smoke that reveals that there is a fire somewhere. The experienced woodcutter, observing the smoke, tells what kind of wood is burning: just as a psychiatrist can draw conclusions concerning the nature of an individual, through the interpretation of his dreams. (ADLER, p. 120).

And in a synthetic way, he says: “In short, we can say that a dream shows us not only that the dreamer is concerned with solving a problem in his life, but also the way in which he faces this problem. Dreams reveal in particular the following two factors that influence a person’s relationships with the world and reality: the feeling of sociability and the struggle for domination” (ADLER, p. 120).

Intelligence

About intelligence Adler writes: “If we want to judge an individual correctly, we cannot exclude his thoughts and words from our examination” (ADLER, p. 121). I mean, if we are going to assess a person’s personality, we cannot be content with what the person does. We also have to take into account what the person says and, perhaps even more important, what the person thinks and does not say – as well as their ideas that are more unconscious than conscious and are hidden behind their mannerisms, mannerisms, speeches, reflections and dreams.

Already at the end of Chapter V, Adler concludes: “It is well known that children from eight to 10 years old in families of high classes, have more mental vivacity than poor children of the same age. This does not mean that rich children are more intelligent, but that the causes of this difference lie entirely in the circumstances of their previous life” (ADLER, p. 122). This phrase indicates his ever-present emphasis on the importance of the environment in the formation of the individual.

In the next class, we will talk about gender differences: men and women.

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