Assume an Experience, if you have it not

One of the stongest appeals about Adler, for me, has been its connection to commonsense. An experience, to be real, needs to be one that "actually" happened. Making up an experience seems contrary to the purpose of therapy. Of course we all work on "as if", but does that mean that we can consciously set about to fake an experience? Would not the fact that we "knew" the experience never happened alter the value of the experience. If I pretend that my mommy loved me, when the opposite was true, what could I gain from a pretended experience that never happened. What I am getting at is that you can't go home again. There is something gimicky about the whole process. Contrary to what many a neurotic thinks, the past did happen. Changing an attitude is one thing, changing the past with a fake memory is another.

Of course, there is the strong possiblity that I have not understood what this therapy is about and, therefore, my reservations about it may be unfounded.

Replies:

Reality and Fiction, by Henry Stein, 6/9/97

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