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Apr 26, 20225 min read

The Production of Happiness

by Anh Nguyen


The Production of Happiness: Adlerian Psychology


Many of us have been questioning the meaning of happiness, whether it is family, career success, or personal life. Happiness varies in form as it depends on individuals. However, there are people who do not believe in happiness as they are going through hardships in life. The term Orthopsychiatry is about preventing mental or behavioral disorders, which guides us in managing our lives so we can live better. Therefore, Adlerian Psychology can analyze and elaborate on our hardships in individual psychological aspects. Some self-help books like “The Courage to be Disliked” and “The Courage to be Happy” are inspired entirely by Adlerian Psychology and written by Japanese philosopher Ichiro Kishimi, who had successfully spread the awareness of how we can have the courage to be happy in life.

Adlerian Psychology has been well-known for achieving a sense of belonging in interpersonal relationships, but this aspect has not been well recognized. According to Watts, R. E., & Ergüner-Tekinalp, B. (pg. 333), Adlerian Psychology is “an optimistic perspective that views people as unique, creative, capable, and responsible". This means that we are capable of growth and thriving to become superior in life. People mostly know about Freudian Psychology and Carl Jung’s psychology theory, and their aspects are mostly the opposite of Adlerian Psychology. Etiology is a study of causation and origination, which is the opposite of Adlerian Psychology. Teleology is a suitable study as it is about the explanation of the purpose, which states that we are the ones who make the decisions for our own lives despite the hardship we had been through in the past. Freudian Psychology mostly determined the person’s future based on their childhood, which is a fixed perception and prevents people to pursue better in life. According to Shyne, A. W. (pg. 359), “Adler rejected the concept of libido as the motivating force in the neuroses and substituted the theory of the inferiority feeling”, meaning that he rejected Freud’s theory on human motivation based on the libido, as he believes the human psyche is more capable on responsibility. Adlerian Psychology had always been against etiology as it only mentions the causation for the effect, and he does not believe people can be easily determined like that.

Take the example of myself, who used to live in an etiology mindset where I bring the cause of my past to define the issues that hold me back from growing. I used to believe that because of my rough start, I would not have the same opportunity as other people have. As I keep believing in myself in a negative way, the more I disengage myself from the sense of belonging. By the time I approach Adlerian Psychology through the book “The Courage to be Disliked”, I realized that I have been subconsciously letting myself believe that I cannot find happiness. I blamed the society that caused me to become “problematic”, but it is actually myself who is responsible for my own life. I changed my mindset from depending on the causation for the effect to being responsible for my life.

When we discuss people in the right mind thinking about happiness, some pessimistic aspects come into our mind as we experience certain inferiority. People who believe that they do not deserve happiness, based on Adlerian Psychology, actively do not want to be happy, but they are capable of it. This is because people tend to use the defense mechanism to not admit they do not want to be happy, in which they will also feel like they are not happy. Another thing that needed to be mentioned is the moment that we live in (Padilla, N., 2022, January 4). Due to our perception lingering in past events, we tend not to live in the present. Based on Adlerian Psychology, the past events do not exist as we already passed the timeline, and the moment we are living right in the present is the events that exist.

An interpersonal relationship is an inevitable thing in our lives because every problem that we have in life is always surrounded by interpersonal relationships. Many people believe that they had been isolated due to socially isolation. In Adlerian Psychology’s perspective, people have actively isolated themselves from the world, and people have subconsciously isolated themselves from society. This is a different matter about one individual, and it is not about the social issue and human rights. People will always go through hardships in life, and how we learn from it to become superior has always been our sense of belonging. Additionally, when we discuss the idea of happiness, people also mention marriage as it is a common struggle for most people. When pursuing marriage, it is not about the matter of religion, but it is about responsibility as it is part of our life task. According to Adler, there are three life tasks that each of us is responsible for in our own life. The first life task is work. This life task is very much similar to Douglas McGregor’s Theory Y, where people are exploring their potential in the work field being meaningful and satisfying. The second life task is friendship, where people seek to achieve a satisfying relationship with others. Finally, the third life task is love. As we mentioned earlier about marriage, it is a task that people have to learn about loving themselves as well as living with their partner. All three aspects of life tasks are important to each other as it helps our lives maintain balance and create great connections in interpersonal relationships. (Carlson, J., & Englar-Carlson, M., 2017, pg. 6)

Despite all of Adler’s studies on people’s interpersonal relationships, Adlerian Psychology does not believe in trauma. This might trigger some aspects of clinical trauma in psychology, but what Adler means is not to underestimate the stigma of trauma. What Adler meant in his perspective, was that people let themselves believe that they have trauma and make excuses to not overcome the stigma, as the person wants care from their family and wants to be comfortable in their own zone. In addition to social inequality, Adler had always been fighting for women’s rights and peace, as he claimed that “it is a disease that harms the populations”, which may explain why he did not condone the social inequality as it prevents everyone from seeking happiness. Adler understands that people who thrive on happiness tend to seek satisfaction in life, which results in our relationships with the self, others, work, and the environment. (Carlson, J., & Englar-Carlson, M., 2017, pg. 7)

In conclusion, happiness is all depending on our perception of life as it has no defined answer. People have been interested in the psychology field, but not all of us are able to grasp the meanings of human reasoning for our well-being psychologically. Adlerian Psychology is not the only theory that started to become well-known due to several self-help books, in which people also learn Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Y. Once again, individual aspects of different psychology theories inspire each other as they help people recognize their potential of pursuing happiness in life.


References


Knapp, I. J. (1932). Review of How to be happy though human. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 2(1), 98–99. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0096101


Shyne, A. W. (1942). The contribution of Alfred Adler to the development of dynamic psychology. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 12(2), 352–360. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-0025.1942.tb05915.x


Watts, R. E., & Ergüner-Tekinalp, B. (2017). Positive Psychology: A Neo-Adlerian Perspective. The Journal of Individual Psychology, 73(4), 328–337. https://doi.org/10.1353/jip.2017.0027

Carlson, J., & Englar-Carlson, M. (2017). Introduction. In J. Carlson & M. Englar-Carlson, Adlerian psychotherapy (pp. 3–9). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000014-001

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