CLASSICAL ADLERIAN PSYCHOTHERAPY FORUM ARCHIVE
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Adler.Samenow & Yochelson: Methods of Treatment
Tim Chapman · 4/3/96 at 1:32 PM ET
Mr. Stein, Thankyou very much for your respomse. I found it very helpful to the ends and means of my research. Although it seems accual publications of Adler's work are hard to obtain, I have been able to glean some of his theories from other sources. One of the most interesting points that you bring up is the fact Adler stated "With criminals, it is different: they have a private logic, a private intelligence. They are suffering from a wrong outlook on the world, a wrong estimate of their own importance and the importance of other people"."The criminal's crimes fit in with his general conception of life". Even then, although he was alone in his premise, the thought that criminals make choices to commit crime existed.(Individual Pychology and Crime, Police Journal 17)(1930).
I don't know what steps if any Adler took in working with criminals, but from what I have read, my best premise would be that correcting thinking, learning of the errors would have been high on his list of first steps. He also hits of what seems to reffer to narrsissism with the importance of self and others.
Concerning the treatment of criminals, You stated Samenow and Yochelson's approach was nomothetic, systematic, and directive: Yes it is, and for a very good reason. The criminal mind, even partially treated individuals, have a tendency to grab on to bits and pieces of treatment and leaving the most important parts behind if allowed. These are generally the parts of treatment that begin deaing with feeling from past events and family events that have left burning scars because the individual knew of no way to heal them. These are getting to the core of what helped formed the individuals thinking, ideals and principles. The suject of getting to your inner self and exposing that self to others is, for the criminal, a very terrifying thing, hence the tendancy to use a program to meet their own ends is common if not strictly controlled and directed. The criminal mind is in general, a very one-sided, secretive, and narrsistic in their view of themself compared to others.
No matter how the treatment program operates, the approach taken, I personally believe there would be a great reduction in recividism if it was mandated to take a program that focused on dealing with correcting thinking and tactics used to enable incorrect thinking. The criminal mind is quite generally a very brilliant one, with the ability to think through and reach logical conclusions to a problem, but unfortunately has been put to work most of the time in crime.
Tim Chapman.
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