From the ground up ... an Adlerian primer??

[George Neeson]

Framing the picture, the use of childhood memories:



All the events of the first ten years of life would fill many, many reels of film.

Why then, when we ask for Early Recollections, do we only get 6 or maybe 10 of these stories?

What Adler proposes and Adlerian therapists will see this all the time, is that the person carefully preselects and presents to us a convenient set of often distorted memories that confirm his style and goal of life. Remember that all the patients movements point to the goal of his endeavour to achieve for him self the superiority he seeks, from the depths of his feeling of inferiority (Minderwertigkeit). So the neurotic does not “have memories”, he uses memories to convince himself and the world around him of the validity of his sense of persecution, of the way the "cruel fates" have conspired against him, and of the utter unfairness of his life. The recollections are not causal as in the “causa finalis”. they are a part of the fiction that he uses to justify his means! His recollections also express his vanity!
The art of working with the early recollections is to see the movement in them. In the discouraged, they are used as a salutary reminder of the dire hazards of life. They may excuse a halting approach to life or even attempt to excuse a backing away from a life task. How can we expect anyone who had "this" happen to them, to act as a contributing member of the community of mankind. E/R’s are a convenient little “trick” when they lead away from “social interest”. What can you expect from me as a child when I had this terrible abuse as a child, they ask? Well why then as Adler points out, do they “cling to this shock? Surely to excuse themselves from making a reasonable and fair contribution.
More needs to be said about the “use or early recollections (and by the way they may also encourage a useful goal) … we are speaking of when they are used to move away from the common good, but that is yet to be developed in this thread. We also need to look at how birth order may be used as opposed to being “causal”, but that must follow in due course.

[Robert L. Powers]

Oh dear. The following may be taken as an illustrated essay on the inferiority feeling and its compensation, seen in the effort to keep up with this "thread" (an image still unclear to me), with the technik of the "forum," and with the basic rules of common courtesy.

George Neeson has kindly written to me in response to my earlier comments on the "blessing" (Adler) of the inferiority feeling, and my adducing evidence from research I am unable to cite regarding the absence of this feeling among sociopaths. In fact I was rather more careful to hedge the statement by saying that this form of pathological movement proceeds (here I should have added "as if," to hedge things further) "untroubled by feelings of inferiority of any effective kind." Perhaps it would have been better to say, "of any socially useful kind." But then, the sociopathic designation is not put on anyone concerned with social usefulness, and I was working in a shorthand way to describe a handicap, a block to the full experience of human solidarity put up by an uncritical "self esteem" at the expense of others.

As to my personal experience as a counselor to such persons, I cannot say that I have had much, or that it has been marked by any clear sense of accomplishment. I agree that, looked at from outside, there is an apparent morbidity in the psyches of such people, and a wretched fantasy life of invincible power and uninterrupted pleasure. There is also a quality in the Early Recollections of easy access to satisfactions found in tastes of sweetness and in various indulgences, caresses, and other softening of the character. These memories are part of the arrangement of a sense of entitlement, together with a resentment of the conventions of decency and respect for others. As George quotes his client, these things are dismissed as restrictions accepted only by suckers.

My favorite illustration is in a story told to me by one of my students at the Adler School in Chicago. She was a person of rather more diminutive size and proportion than the average. One night she was followed from her bus to her apartment house by a rather tall young man of superior height and apparent strength, who rushed in to the foyer of her building while she was working to put her key in the lock of the inner door. His intention was clearly to overwhelm her and molest her sexually. She, however, had a temperament that did not take insult quietly, and she had taken a course in self-defense. In fact, she had been aware of his following her and sensed what he was up to and had gathered up a great gob of spittle, which she now let fly all over the front of his coat. He fell back to study what she had done, and seeing the spittle running down the front of his clothes he shouted at her in the offended tone of moral reproach, "This is a brand new suit!" In that moment she had got her key in the lock and herself through the door to safety.

I take his moral shock as an illustration of the absence of any "effective" feelings of inferiority (apart from his new situation of carrying a degrading spittle on his clothes). To him, it was she who had no manners, and she who deserved reproach for her abuse of him, and her hostile refusal to give him what he acted as if he was entitled to have.

[To work backward through my chagrin for this late reply, I only today came across the questions put to me by George in his entry of Oct 19. My plea must be that until today my e-mail did not inform me that there had been any further comments on my comments. Perhaps I am being too passive, and it may be that participation in the forum requires one to check in more regularly to see where one stands in the dialogues.]

In any case, I hope my rudeness will be overlooked in this instance. I also hope to get the hang of this thing as we go along.

Bob Powers

[sslavik]

George, if Adler is correct, there is no way to verify that early memories are distorted or even a selection. There is no possibility of bringing forth evidence to prove that events didn't happen just as someone says they did. In fact, that someone says they happened in a certain way is prima facie evidence that they did. Steve

[George Neeson]

Steve that does not fit with Adler's notion that "All perception is biased apperception", does it?

[George Neeson]

Well Bob it is nice to get a reply from you in this matter. In my limited experience these "criminals" they are the most trying and difficult people to work with. I look at a whole family system in ruins over the egocenticity of the (usually) one who seeks his own pleasure and the consequences be damned! I can agree that they have no "effective" inferiority feeling that would constrain their incredibly aggressive attitude toward society. It is heartwrenching to see a fellow human utterly determined, come Hell or high water, to walk against society. It gives a new meaning to "moving in a wrong direction against social interest". I am not able to see clearly how Aldler's understanding fits in these cases, but that is most probably because I do not know the theory as well as I could. I might also suggest an "organ inferiority" of the brain. I can't recall where I heard this and I can not find the reference, but I do recall reading a study at autopsy using the scanning electron microscope (I hope that is correct) that indicated serious derangment of synaptical connections with a preponderance of connections to "excitor areas". Please don't hold me to the conclusion. I shall try to find it but I think I lost it when I had a hard drive crash 18 months ago. It was an intriguing article. If that is the case we still do not know under the influence of NGF whether what the criminal thinks about miswires the structure, or if the structure was "inferior" from the onset of the child's life (what a horrible fate that would be). If it is an organ inferiority, what role do penal institutions play save to keep the community at large safer? This is a huge issue and to quote a seniour Ontario Provincial police officer that I am working with at the moment, a very compassionate man, "It is horrible to put human beings in cages. There must be a better way." I sure hope there is.
Your comments about their E/R's are intiguing information ... all about the sweet things in life as if they were for them alone (WOW), are a further insight. Looking back on one of these guys, it is there, but for him it was in stealing toys as a child. It is slightly different, but it sure tastes the same to me. I think that is a really important insight. It would be wonderful to hear the experiences of someone(s) who have done more concentrated work with these tragic and scarey people.
Blessings and thanks for your stimulating reply.

[George Neeson]

Bob after I got upstairs I remembered something from Sunday school that was said in 1 Timothy 4: 12 (Bible) by Paul. Paul whose Hebrew name was Saul from Tarsus was trained by the rabbinic scholar of his day, Gamaliel. Gamieliel was a "Doctor of Torah Law" (forgive me I am not Jewish, so I do not know all the implications of this), and he was the grandson (Gamaliel) of Hillel who is well know in Jewish history as a most respected scholar. Gamaliel was an authority on the Jewish Mishna. Saul's name was changed to Paulus (Paul) in English (means small in Greek) with his conversion to christianity. He travelled widely in Greek and Roman culture so he had both a Jewish and Greek richness to his thought. He seemed like a very fine religious thinker in the very earliest records of the emerging christian church. Anyway .... to make a long story short he says to his side kick (student) Timothy, a Greek, that certain people "have their conscience(GK Suneidesis) seared (GK Kautariazowith ... from which we get cauterized) with a hot iron" He appears to be leaning toward a notion of structural damage. I wonder therefore, what the implications of structural damage are in reference to the notion of christian forgiveness. May not be of any value in this thread, but the association intrigued me!

[sslavik]

actually, it fits with it precisely. That's why I say there is no chance of verifying that a memory is distorted. There is no objective point of view to which to compare anyone's early memories, and there fore it makes no sense at all to say that any memory is distorted or inaccurate. It is an unverifiable claim, if what Adler says is correct. Steve

[George Neeson]

Steve I am missing something. From what perspective is it not distorted? Perhaps you are referring to Private Logic, in which case the consistency of the Life Stlyle really does come in to play. What am I failing to comprehend please?
The problem I am struggling is that I have had a number of occasions when the E/R was confirmed to be non-factual. In fact one of Adler's E/R's, he acknowledges was non-factual ... the one about running past the cemetary with great courage only to find later in life that said cemetary did not exist!

[Robert L. Powers]

Dear George,

I am rather discouraged about the mechanics of this exchange. After a rather extensive entry, interrupted in mid-sentence, mid-paragraph by another matter, the whole of my learned commentary disappeared into the ether. Future generations suffer.

Enough now to say that words are slippery, that inferiority (in itself) is not a bad word; that self-esteem is not (in itself) a good word.

There is now no time for more.

Bob Powers

[George Neeson]

Bob I have had the same loss of the information experience. There must be some quirk in the software on the forums or the link gets dropped en route. What I have resorted to now is to create the posting in Word, save it as a text file, copy it to the clip board after saving it so if it evaporates I still have it, then paste it to the "WYSIWYG" editor. That works just fine and solves an otherwise annoying problem.