The Adlerian Shortcut

As a graduate student in clinical mental health, we learn about various theories and approaches to help people. There are several different theories a counselor or therapist can use—psychodynamic, humanistic, behavioral, cognitive, emerging and many more.

Within each type, however, there are distinct approaches with each, developed by therapists who were evolving the approaches that came before them. Everyone thinks of Freud and Jung within the psychodynamic field—we’ve all heard of the ego, the id, and the subconscious—but an unsung name in popular culture is Alfred Adler, who came up after Jung.

Each leader in the field evolves on the previous work of another; in my opinion, Adler's contribution was brilliant for it's efficiency—he created a “fast-track” approach to psychodynamic counseling. Instead of free association or talking about one's dreams to tap into one's subconscious, he used a simple intake form. A client fills out a questionnaire before starting therapy. It asks them to list their three earliest memories. Out of the gate, a therapist can get to the roots of a person's early childhood experience much faster. Why memories? Because it's the strong emotional content that causes us to register it as a memory in the brain.

Our earliest childhood memories are formative—creating beliefs about ourselves and the world around us—and often it can lay in shadow. We can’t see our subconscious because it's the building blocks of who we are and how we operate.

Soul-Prompt: What are my 3 earliest memories in life? What did each one teach me?