Alfred Adler (1870-1937)
Alfred Adler. Alfred Adler (1870-1937) is a personality psychologist rarely cited as a contributor of transpersonal psychology, although his notion of the “creative self” presages contemporary understandings of the nature of the transpersonal portions of our identity. Personality theorists Hall and Lindsey (1978) calls Adler’s concept of the creative self “the active principle of human life, and it is not unlike the older concept of soul” (Hall & Lindsey, 1978, p. 166).
When he discovered the creative power of the self, all his other concepts were subordinated to it; here at last was the prime mover, the philosopher’s stone, the elixir of life, the first cause of everything human for which Adler had been searching. The unitary, consistent, creative self is sovereign in the personality structure. (Hall & Lindsey, 1978, pp. 165-166)
Adler’s concept of the “creative self.” Adler was one of the first personality theorists to suggest that there was a power within the human personality that was truly creative in nature – capable of displaying abilities that were record-breaking, that set new standards and destroyed limitations of mind and body, and that brought into conscious awareness new areas of action and expression that were nonstandard and unpredictable. The inner self was capable of high creative acts that open up new areas of being, and that expands the individual’s capacity to think and act in new ways.
In our choices, we create ourselves. With the concept of the creative self, Adler was declaring that individuals were ultimately free to interpret the meaning of the environmental and genetic influences that impinge upon the personality. It is the interpretations the individual makes of these influences that determine their effect, one’s attitude toward life, and one’s relationship to the world of time and others. We create our personality through the choices we make. Heredity and environment are the bricks that the self uses in its own ways to creatively build the individual’s style of life.
|
The creative self creates the goals as well as the means to the goals. From a transpersonal perspective, the creative self can be conceived of as that portion of the universe that is personally disposed in our direction because its energies form our own person. Its creative power always sustains and nourishes our existence. The creative self shapes an individual’s style of life and guides the method of striving toward one’s goals.
Like all first causes, the creative power of the self is hard to describe. We can see its effects, but cannot see it. It is something that intervenes between the stimuli acting upon the person and the responses the person makes to these stimuli. In essence, the doctrine of a creative self asserts that humans make their own personalities. They construct them out of the raw material of heredity and experience. The creative self is the yeast that acts upon the facts of the world and transforms these facts into a personality that is subjective, dynamic, unified, personal, and uniquely stylized. The creative self gives meaning to life; it creates the goal as well as the means to the goal. (Hall & Lindsey, 1978, p. 166)
In seeking our individual fulfillment, we contribute to the betterment of all society. The powers of the creative self always seek fulfillment. For Adler, this was seen most readily in individual’s striving for superiority and success. In seeking out those conditions that are best suited to his or her own happiness and fulfillment, each individual naturally contributes to the betterment and fulfillment of others, for no one’s fulfillment can be achieved at the expense of others. Fulfillment does not happen that way, and to suppose otherwise, is to misunderstand the nature of human fulfillment. The creative self was common to all human beings, but uncommon and unique in its individual expression, bringing out and extending the capacities of individual action and the achievement of our species. When a person acts most individualistically and least like others that person models or points out to others possibilities of achievement not perceived earlier by members of society.
|
