Quantum Individual Psychology

The following passages, from the writings of Adler and Dreikurs, define Individual Psychology in respect to the central concepts of Quantum physics. Does anyone know if there are any other writings or further developments in this area of Adlerian thought? Thank you, Carroll

"The question as to the meaning of life has value and significance only if we keep in view the related system of humankind and the cosmos. When we do this it is easy to see that in this relationship the cosmos possesses a formative power. The cosmos is, so to speak, the parent of everything that lives, and all life is engaged in a constant struggle to satisfy its demands. This does not mean that it contains an impulse capable of bringing everything in life to future completion and that only needs to unfold itself, but rather something inherent which is part and parcel of life itself, a struggle, an urge, a self-development, a something without which life is inconceivable.
"To live means to develop. The human spirit is only too well accustomed to reducing everything that is in flux to a form, to considering it not as movement, but as frozen movement, movement that has become form. We Individual Psychologists have for some time been on the way to resolving what we conceive of as form into movement. Everyone knows that the completed individual person springs from a single cell; but it should also be clearly understood that in this cell are the ingredients necessary for its development. . . .
"The development of living things from a diminutive, living unity could only take place with the sanction of the cosmic influence. With regard to this we may think as Smuts did in his ingenious work, Wholeness and Evolution; we may assume that life exists in inorganic matter as well - an idea suggested by modern (p. 197) physics, when it shows us how the electrons revolve about the proton. Whether this view will turn out to be right in the end we do not know. Certain it is that our conception of life cannot be doubted any longer, and that in it a movement is implicit which strives towards self-preservation, towards propagation, and towards contact with the external world - a contact that must be victorious if life is not to succumb. In the light that Darwin has shed we can understand the selection of all those species that can turn the demands of the external world to advantage. Lamarck's view, which is more akin to our own, gives us proofs of the creative energy that is inherent in every form of life. The universal fact of the creative evolution of all living things can teach us that a goal is appointed for the line of development in every species: the goal of perfection, of active adaptation to cosmic demands" (p. 198).

Adler, Alfred (1933/1998). Social interest: Adler's key to the meaning of life. Edited by Colin Brett. Oxford, England: Oneworld Publications.

"Since physical science has taken the ground of causality from under the feet of psychologists and in place of it speaks in favor of a statistical probability in the same issue of events, then surely the attacks on Individual Psychology for its denial of causality in psychical events need no longer be taken seriously" (p. 13).

Adler, Alfred (1933/1964). Social Interest: a challenge to mankind. New York: Capricorn Books.

"We must get used to the idea that knowing everything is neither possible nor necessary" (p. 56).

"The notion that a given effect is due to a given cause has been the very essence of the traditional scientific method. But today the mechanistic concept of life and the universe is slowly being discarded. 'Statistical probability' is being substituted for the certainties of the causal principle. The modern physicist observes that when he shoots electrons in one direction, some deviate in an unpredictable manner, going far astray for no apparent reason. Nevertheless, the majority of electrons hit the target as expected. There is no certainty, but there is a high degree of statistical probability" (p. 168).

"We are thus confronted with a new dynamic process: the 'freedom' of the smallest unit, be it electron or human individual. Adler's indeterministic assumption that the individual had freedom to choose his own goals, frowned upon by scientists at the time, has found support from research in the most reliable field of science, physics. Research has also confirmed another of Adler's basic assumptions, namely, that the creative ability in man is closely related to man's wholeness as an individual. Adler called his school of thought 'Individual Psychology' to indicate that at the basis of his theories is the recognition of man as a total unit: the term 'individual' is used, in this sense, as something that cannot be divided into parts, that is 'indivisible'" (p. 169)

Dreikurs, Rudolf (1971). Social equality: the challenge of today. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company.

Replies:

Re:Quantum Individual Psychology, by Henry Stein, 11/27/02

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