Mosak's Meanderings:

Adler and Dream Research

   Some years ago I posed a question to my Adlerian colleagues, “What does it mean when we say that social interest is innate?”  I received many replies, some very reasoned ones, but  none which I could accept. One European replied, “I don’t understand Dr. Mosak’s question. After all, Adler said so.”  For many practitioners and students the “evidence” for them is that so-and-so said so.  Students fill up pages of their dissertations with quotations by scholars, as if the quotations prove some point or other.  Since I believe that one should have reverence for one’s teachers (See my dedication in Mosak, 1987), I may respect those who make these statements as indications of my reverence but not as evidence.  The distinction can be observed in a remark by Beck that he uses certain Rorschach scorings only because his teacher, Oberholzer, scored the responses that way.

     Without detracting from Adler’s contributions, the fact that Adler said so doesn’t make it so. Being human, he committed error, displayed ”blind spots,” misunderstood,  and exhibited the frailties and characteristics of other human beings.  In addition, he was a product of his time and culture and did not address or inadequately addressed topics which later assumed significance.

     Let me recount a refreshing anecdote. Alfred Adler wrote that well-adjusted people do not dream because the dream is problem- solving activity, and they solve their problems in the waking state.  [Adler offered himself as evidence, a person who did not dream.  This wasn’t true either because on the day he died, he observed that “I woke smiling…so I knew my dreams were good although I had forgotten them” (Bottome, p. 278).  When sleep and dream research came to the fore, I asked Kurt Adler, “How do you reconcile your father’s statement that well-adjusted people don’t dream with current research which indicates that all  people dream every night? Kurt Adler’s reply? “My father spoke much nonsense in his life time, and this was one of his bits of nonsense.”

     This is not to denigrate Adler.  Among other things, it points out that theory is not carved in stone.  Theory evolves.  The Ansbachers (1956) make this clear in showing paragraph by paragraph how Adler’s theory evolved.  This is true of any scientific theory.  The current periodic table in chemistry bears little resemblance to the  one I learned seventy years ago in high school chemistry. To conclude, we might well heed Adler’s admonition that “It could also be entirely different.”  Even “Mosak said so ” does not constitute evidence, although some students attempt to use it so in their doctoral examinations to avoid further questioning of their findings and opinions.

References

Ansbacher, Heinz L. & Ansbacher, Rowena R. (Eds.) (1956). The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler. New York: Basic Books.

Bottome, Phyllis (1939). Alfred Adler: A biography. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

Mosak, Harold H. (1987). Ha ha and aha: The role of humor in psychotherapy. Muncie, IN: Accelerated Development.