blowing in the direction of goodness

1912 marked the release of Alfred Adler’s first major work, the Neurotic Constitution. A blending of philosophy, evolutionary ecology, and biology, the Neurotic Constitution would serve as a bold and compelling counterpoint to both Emil Kraepelin’s medicalized approach to psychopathology as well as Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic view.

                                                    Alfred Adler, 1830-1937
                                                   

Distinct from either of these perspectives, Alfred Adler’s Individual Psychology would prove to be a pragmatic and generally optimistic framework with broad application for clinical, medical, educational, occupational, and organizational settings.

To Adler, human life was to be viewed relative to the broader ecology.  Other species developed claws, sharp teeth, or wings to promote survival, while humans fostered a highly evolved life-sustaining social existence that allowed them to gather and grow food, construct shelter, and defend against threat.  Adler’s approach thereby considered the individual in context; a fundamentally biological entity, seeking to survive and thrive in a fundamentally social reality.  Adler viewed humans as possessing a vulnerable but creative life force, endowed with unique compensatory mechanisms that would buoy them against real or perceived threats, sustaining and preserving their existence in the face of life's adversities.

It was from this perspective that Adler came to appreciate the emergence of psychopathology.  Adler saw how we as humans inherit a certain biological apparatus that confers relative risks or benefits to the individual as determined through the individual's early and repeated encounters with the social environment and physical world.  The self seeks out a feeling of subjective significance or belonging, and comes to appropriate it's biological facilities in doing so. Disruptive or problematic behaviors that become the cause of concern must thereby be viewed relative to the immediate as well as the broad social factors that shape an individual’s reality. 

Typically, disruptive behavior patterns develop because they served some longstanding function given the circumstances of an individual's lived experience.  In these cases, deeply engrained tendencies that served as a benefit in one context come to be rigidly applied in settings where the behavior is no longer advantageous.  At other times, disruptive behavior may be viewed as being reflective of existing social realities that the individual may be underprepared for or when individual is prevented from engaging in more healthy and adaptive responses. In either of theses cases, a behavior can not be fully understood and treated until taking into consideration the past and current social contexts in which the behavior evolved.

Individual Psychology is an instructive psychology that goes beyond treatment to provide a model for healthy behavior.   As his own views developed, Adler ultimately made use of the German term, gemeinschaftsgefuhl, which for Adler was synonymous with generally healthy social and emotional behavior.  Gemeinschaftsgefuhl was approached by Adler as both cause and consequence of healthy social living.  The term has been translated to mean Social Interest or Community Feeling.  To proponents of Individual Psychology, the term constitutes a nuanced psychological construct that speaks to the individual’s basic orientation towards the world and others.  Healthy behavior was characterized by Adler as behavior that was organized by a vested interest in the greater good (social interest) as well as a sense of commune with and affinity for the human community (community feeling).  To Adler, a major key to both prevention as well as treatment of psychopathology included the sufficient development of Social Interest and Community Feeling in both the individual and within the social order which supports and sustains the individual.

More than a century following the publication of Adler’s first major work, research and science are finally catching up to Alfred Adler.  Meaningful scholarship and popular attention are finally being paid to social factors that impact upon healthy psychological development.  Increasingly, we are being made aware of the psychologically detrimental impacts of Social Exclusion, Poverty, Racism, Bullying, Warfare, early childhood maltreatment, trauma, domestic violence, and community violence.  Such circumstances constitute public health concerns which need to be addressed in hopes of promoting a just, equitable, and healthy social reality. 

Meanwhile, all around us we can experience the healthy and life-promoting aspects of Social Interest and Community Feeling.  The modes of us encountering this reality extend beyond scientific research and scholarship, and are made real in the living experiences we all encounter on a daily basis, whenever life proves to be happy, productive, and meaningful.  The art and science of healthy social living is accessible to us all, provided we muster the courage and willingness to embrace it.

This blog constitutes our modest attempt to blow in the general direction of goodness.  We invite you to participate in and contribute to this ongoing expose and dialogue on Community Feeling.   

                 blog by Ben Rader, Psy.D

pictured here in Hawaii with daughter Olive

references:

Adler, A (1998), The Neurotic Constitution, North Stratford, NH: Ayer Company Publishers, Inc.