Fumitake Koga

Adlerian psychology is a psychology of courage. Your unhappiness cannot be blamed on your past or your environment. And it isn’t that you lack competence. You just lack courage. One might say you are lacking in the courage to be happy.

To quote Adler again: ‘The important thing is not what one is born with but what one makes of that equipment.’ You want to be Y or someone else because you are utterly focused on what you were born with. Instead, focus on what you can make of your equipment.

A healthy feeling of inferiority is not something that comes from comparing oneself to others; it comes from one’s comparison with one’s ideal self.

First, there are two objectives for behavior: to be self-reliant and to live in harmony with society. Then, the two objectives for the psychology that supports these behaviors are the consciousness that ‘I have the ability’ and the consciousness that ‘people are my comrades.’

There is no need to be recognized by others. Actually, one must not seek recognition. This point cannot be overstated.

That is why in Adlerian psychology, self-reliance as an individual and cooperation within society are put forth as overarching objectives. Then, how can one achieve these objectives? On this point, Adler speaks of surmounting the three tasks of work, friendship, and love, the tasks of the interpersonal relationships that a living person has no choice but to confront.

As a result of having received counseling, what kind of resolution does the client make? To change his lifestyle or not. This is the client’s task, and the counselor cannot intervene.

As Adler says, ‘Children who have not been taught to confront challenges will try to avoid all challenges.’

Do you see it now? In a word, happiness is the feeling of contribution. That is the definition of happiness.

When one is not following through with one’s tasks, it is not because one is without ability. Adlerian psychology tells us that the issue here is not one of ability but simply that ‘one has lost the courage to face one’s tasks.’ And if that is the case, the thing to do before anything else is to recover that lost courage.