As If and Persuasion

Athur,

"As if" refers to the picture of life, fictional final goal, scheme of apperception, and private logic that describe and explain the inner world of the client and his attitude toward different aspects of living. He behaves "as if" his perceptions, memories, images, assumptions, and anticipations of the future are all true and justified. In order to find orientation in life, we may develop a guiding "as if" fiction that give meaning to our experiences, and direction to our striving for security and significance.

Adler was clearly influenced by the German philosopher Hans Vaihinger who authored "The Philosophy of As If." In his masterful work, Vaihinger catalogues the various scientific, legal, monetary, political, aesthetic, geographic, and psychological fictions that we use to provide orientation and ideals.

With an accepting, empathic, diplomatic, and Socratic approach we help a client see that he has exactly the right feelings for his (unconscious) fictional final goal. However, we stimulate his active thinking about the probable consequences, to himself and others, of pursuing that goal. We help his see that feelings and emotions "are not arguments" for doing or not doing something--they merely facilitate intentions. If you want others to do the work and serve your needs, passivity, depression, even fatigue can be used to intoxicate yourself and impress others. Often, questioning the cost/benefit ratio of symptoms, advantages, and disadvantages helps the individual "persuade himself" to take action in a different direction. The Socratic style of leading a client toward making his own conclusions, minimizes resistance to new ideas and change.

For an illustration of the Socratic method, see A Demonstration of Classical Adlerian Psychotherapy Technique, Using Socratic Questioning in Psychotherapy at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/hstein/demo1.htm .

Dr. Stein

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