New BBC Television Program on Birth Order Will Include Adler's Contribution

The BBC is preparing a special television program about birth order. Yesterday, a BBC interviewer and film crew questioned me about Adler's ideas on birth order, and filmed demonstrations of two of my therapeutic strategies (using eidetic imagery and role-playing to provide a missing developmental experience) for dealing with problems connected to early sibling relationships. They have also interviewed Frank Sulloway ("Born to Rebel..."), Judith Harris, and other researchers, theorists, and authors. The program will present several contrasting views about the impact of birth order on personality development, and will probably air later this summer in England as well as the Discovery channel in the United States. I'll post information about it as soon as they announce the schedule.

The interviewer was quite intrigued by the Adlerian "balanced" view of early influences on personality development that includes: birth order; parental attitudes; social and economic position of the family; organ inferiority, early illness and appearance; and gender roles. I emphasized that birth order does not cause any direction of development, but that the individual's interpretation, and degrees of creative power, courage, and feeling of community influence which birth order advantages or disadvantages may be used to formulate a style of life and fictional final goal. I also pointed out that highly competitive family environments may contribute to the character contrasts between siblings, and that the emergence of more democratic family environments may lessen (or eliminate) those contrasts.

During our discussion about the correlation of birth order and occupations, I suggested that an equally interesting avenue of inquiry might be the correlation of organ inferiorities and occupations. (I asked the sound technician if he recalled any early physical problems. He replied that he had suffered from chronic ear aches during most of his childhood.)

Although they filmed nearly four hours of the interview with me, and a demonstration with a client (another Classical Adlerian therapist assisted in the role-play), a considerably shorter, edited version will appear in the final cut. Hopefully, the program will help clarify and highlight the ongoing relevance of Adler's ideas.

Dr. Stein

AAISF Web Site: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/hstein/

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