This book was written principally with the practitioner in mind. Like most
practitioners, I dutifully learned about all the major theories of personality,
learning, and their corresponding concepts. It wasn’t until I had the privi-lege of both hearing and watching Dr. rudolf Dreikurs teach and demon-strate the Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler that I became convinced
that practitioners of all helping disciplines can benefit from the insights
and methods of Adler and Dreikurs. Practitioners in all settings working
with persons across the life span use this approach quite successfully. It is
also applied successfully, however, by parents, teachers, paraprofessionals,
and laypersons in homes, businesses, and educational settings.
Critical reviews of the earlier editions reported them to be useful, con-cise overviews of the theory and practice of what Adler called his Individual
Psychology. For this fifth edition, every effort has been made to retain
these characteristics while adding to, revising, and updating the material.
not wanting to deviate from Adler and Dreikurs, this work follows their
line of thinking while incorporating research, methods, and techniques
that expand upon Individual Psychology. My goal has been to provide an
overview with practical applications rather than an exhaustive review of
each topic. references to more thorough treatments of each topic will be
found through the book, however, and some are especially notable as they
were published since the last edition of this book