The term style of life (german: Lebensstil) was used by psychiatrist

Alfred Adler Alfred Adler ( , ; 7 February 1870 – 28 May 1937) was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of individual psychology. His emphasis on the importance of feelings of belonging, family constellation and birth orde ...

as one of several constructs describing the dynamics of the personality.

Origins

Adler was influenced by the writings of

Hans Vaihinger Hans Vaihinger (; September 25, 1852 – December 18, 1933) was a German philosopher, best known as a Kant scholar and for his ''Die Philosophie des Als Ob'' ('' The Philosophy of 'As if), published in 1911 although its statement of basic ...

, and his concept of

fictionalism Fictionalism is the view in philosophy according to which statements that appear to be descriptions of the world should not be construed as such, but should instead be understood as cases of "make believe", of pretending to treat something as liter ...

, mental constructs, or working models of how to interpret the world. From them he evolved his notion of the teleological goal of an individual's personality, a fictive ideal, which he later elaborated with the means for attaining it into the whole style of life.

The Life Style

The Style of Life reflects the individual's unique, unconscious, and repetitive way of responding to (or avoiding) the main tasks of living: friendship, love, and work. This style, rooted in a childhood prototype, remains consistent throughout life, unless it is changed through depth psychotherapy. The style of life is reflected in the unity of an individual's way of thinking, feeling, and acting. The life style was increasingly seen by Adler as a product of the individual's own creative power, as well as being rooted in early childhood situations. Clues to the nature of the life style are provided by dreams, memories (real or constructed), and childhood/adolescent activities. Often bending an individual away from the needs of others or of common sense, in favor of a private logic, movements are made to relieve inferiority feelings or to compensate for those feelings with an unconscious fictional final goal. At its broadest, the life style includes self-concept, the self-ideal (or

ego ideal In Freudian psychoanalysis, the ego ideal (german: Ichideal) is the inner image of oneself as one wants to become. Alternatively, "the Freudian notion of a perfect or ideal self housed in the superego," consisting of "the individual's conscious and ...

), an ethical stance and a view of the wider world. Classical Adlerian psychotherapy attempts to dissolve the archaic style of life and stimulate a more creative approach to living, using the standpoint of social usefulness as a benchmark for change.

Types of style

Adler felt he could distinguish four primary types of style. Three of them he said to be "mistaken styles". These include: #the ''ruling type'': aggressive, dominating people who don't have much social interest or cultural perception; #the ''getting type'': dependent people who take rather than give; #the ''avoiding type'': people who try to escape life's problems and take little part in socially constructive activity. #the ''socially useful'' type: people with a great deal of social interest and activity.

Religious interpretation

Adler used life style as a way of psychologising religion, seeing evil as a distortion in the style of life, driven by

egocentrism Egocentrism is the inability to differentiate between self and other. More specifically, it is the inability to accurately assume or understand any perspective other than one's own. Egocentrism is found across the life span: in infancy, early chi ...

, and grace as first the recognition of the faulty life style, and then its rectification by human help to rejoin the human community.

Wider influence

Wilhelm Stekel Wilhelm Stekel (; 18 March 1868 – 25 June 1940) was an Austrian physician and psychologist, who became one of Sigmund Freud's earliest followers, and was once described as "Freud's most distinguished pupil". According to Ernest Jones, "Stekel ...

discussed the 'Life goals' (''Lebensziele'') set in childhood, and neurosis as their product, in what

Henri Ellenberger Henri Frédéric Ellenberger (Nalolo, Barotseland, Rhodesia, 6 November 1905 – Quebec, 1 May 1993) was a Canadian psychiatrist, medical historian, and criminologist, sometimes considered the founding historiographer of psychiatry. Ellenberger ...

described as "Adler's ideas expressed almost in his own words". * Strongly influenced by Adler was the idea of a ''life script'' in

Transactional analysis Transactional Analysis (TA) is a psychoanalytic theory and method of therapy wherein social interactions (or “transactions”) are analyzed to determine the ego state of the communicator (whether parent-like, childlike, or adult-like) as a b ...

. Discussing the script as "an ongoing life plan formed in early childhood", Eric Berne wrote that "of all those who preceded transactional analysis, Alfred Adler comes the closest to talking as a script analyst". He quoted him as saying: "'If I know the goal of a person I know in a general way what will happen...a long-prepared and long-meditated plan for which he alone is responsible'".Eric Berne, ''What Do You Say After You Say Hello?'' (1974) p. 32 and p. 58

References

External links

Alfreed Adler's 'Individual Psychology'
{{DEFAULTSORT:Style Of Life Adlerian psychology