Path to Adler

I reply to your request for antecedents to becoming an Adlerian, I can say I came to it strictly on an intellectual basis. I am now in the Core faculty of The Adler School of Professional Psychology, as well as an adjunct Professor of Psychology at Loyola University of Chicago, but until the age of 48 I was in the fur business and had never studied any academic psychology. In college I was in the Committee on International Relations at the University of Chicago, but I never received a degree since I became discouraged by McCarthyism. I had some friends who were studying Psychology, but both behaviorism and psychoanalysis struck me as nonsense, and I thought that was all there was of psychology

My first exposure to anything that made sense in psychology was when I chanced on the works of Erich Fromm. My affinity to Frommian thinking probably resulted from my favorable attitude toward Marxism. Also, my brother-in-law was responding well to Frommian psychoanalysis in Mexico. When, in my own circumstances, I went to find a psychotherapist I discovered there were no known Frommian Psychoanalysts in Chicago. Somebody who had been exposed to Adlerian (Dreikursion) parental counseling suggested I seek out an Adlerian. I remember contacting Bina Rosenberg on the phone and asking her whether her school was closer to Fromm or to Freud, and when she responded, "closer to Fromm," I went to her group.

A couple years thereafter, I decided to leave the business, in which I had never found contentment, and return to school to at least finish a bachelor degree. What was I to study? Due to my exposure to Fromm and now, to Adler, I chose psychology. At age 48 I received my BA Summa cum Laude, and was accepted to a Ph.D. program at Loyola. I didn't even know enough about the field of Psychology to realize that it consisted of more than Clinical Psychology, so that was the area in which I received my degree. While engaged in my studies in Loyola, and my several internships, I simultaneously completed my course work and practicums for a Certificate in Psychotherapy at the Alfred Adler Institute (which, when it became the Adler School of Prof. Psy, accepted me for a faculty member.) As I began turning from the practice of therapy toward teaching, I decided this was what I really had been seeking, so I now define myself primarily as a professor.

I find Adlerian ideas important and useful in every one of the ten or so courses I teach in the field of psychology. I love science, and find Adler's ideas and approach to have the most affinity to science of all the schools of applied psychology.

In sum, although Adlerian psychologists have helped me make some major decisions in life, I consider myself an Adlerian not as a result of practical application to my life, but as the most sensible approach to psychology.

Replies:

Re:Path to Adler, by leslie silverman, 12/27/03

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