Adlerian-Based Positive Group Counseling Interventions with Emotionally Troubled Youth
Adlerian-Based Positive Group Counseling Interventions with Emotionally Troubled Youth
J. Steve Hamm, Jon Carlson, and Bengu Erguner-Tekinalp
Abstract
The focus of Adlerian therapy is to help individuals discover their resources and strengths, and to help them to be more encouraged in reaching their goals in a more functioning way. Recently, the positive psychology movement has become the ma jor focus for researchers and mental health providers. Adlerian theory and ensuing humanistic approaches have been considered as the basis of positive psychology. Positive psychology— like Adlerian theory—calls for looking at individual strengths, virtues, and areas of well-being. This article describes an Adlerian-based group coun seling program which integrated positive psychology interventions with youth in a residential treatment center. This article describes how Adlerian theory aligns with the positive psychology interventions, along with recommendations for practitioners.
Keywords: Individual Psychology, positive psychology, strength-based, resilience, well-being, encouragement, posttraumatic growth
There has been an increasing interest in focusing on strengths, solutions, resilience, and thriving of individuals even after traumatic experiences. Alfred Adler has been considered as the forefather of such strength-based approaches (Erguner-Tekinalp, 2016; Carlson, Watts, & Maniacci, 2006). Within the last two decades, an interest has grown in studies and interven tions examining human strengths, virtues, and well-being with the increas ing popularity of the positive psychology movement (Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005). Positive psychology is defined as the scientific study of optimal human functioning (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). The goal of this alternative movement is to understand well-being rather than dis order, and not only how people recover or cope but also how individuals and communities thrive and flourish (Seligman, 2011). An effort has been made to change the focus of mental health professionals from focusing on what has been harmful in problematic and traumatic events to how individu als cope with, develop resilient capacities for, and even in some cases thrive through these negative experiences. The focus is more on what goes well with individuals rather than what goes wrong (Carlson, Watts, & Maniacci, 2006). This approach to helping is more complete as it identifies not only
The Journal o f Individual Psychology, Vol. 72, No. 4, Winter 2016 ©2016 by the University o f Texas Press
Editorial office located in the College of Education at Georgia State University. Published for the North American Society of Adlerian Psychology.
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the negative impact but also the individuals’ striving to overcome. It is very common for individuals to discover their strengths, gifts, and many posi tive traits through experiencing problems (Saleebey, 1992; 2000). As Adler repeatedly pointed out Individual Psychology as the “psychology of use” (Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1956), it is not about what a person has, but more about how a person uses what they have. Adlerian theory emphasizes that nature or nurture is inadequate in explaining the development of problems or coping. Rather, there is an emphasis on one’s ability to influence, inter pret, and create events as people have the capacity to transform the events and determine their own destinies (Adler, 1931; Corey, 2016). Therefore, in Adlerian therapy, just like in positive psychology, the focus is on how individuals overcome difficulties and what they gain out of such challenges. Although the traditional diagnostic lens stresses only what is wrong or harm ful, clients become more encouraged, empowered, and resilient when they realize skills, positive traits, and strengths they have. It is also important for clinicians to understand hardiness, resilience, and posttraumatic growth or thriving experiences of their clients (Calhoun & Tedeschi, 2013).
lust as Adlerians perceive their clients as discouraged individuals who have the inner strength and potential to overcome, strive from felt minus to felt plus, positive psychology calls for looking at individual strengths, virtues, and areas of well-being rather than focusing solely on pathology, weakness, and deficits. Current research in this area supports what Adler realized a century ago, that one of the best ways to remedy problems is to focus on identifying and developing client strengths, rather than focusing exclusively on their pathology. Positive psychology is a study of strengths and recogniz ing that pathology and weakness can be reduced by identifying, develop ing, and strengthening an individual’s positive qualities (Harris, Thoresen, & Lopez, 2007; Seligman, 2011; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). A wellness model to counseling which emphasizes prevention over remedia tion (Myers, 1992) has been adopted by Adlerians and became popular with the positive psychology movement. During the past twenty years, promising applications of positive psychology have supported increased confidence in the potential for interventions that focus on strengths to produce measurable change (Anderson & Lopez-Baez, 2008; Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996). This new research in positive psychology provides evidence of Adlerian prin ciples in therapy.
The purpose of this article is to describe an Adlerian-based group coun seling utilizing positive psychology interventions with emotionally troubled youth in a residential treatment center. The interventions are applicable to various age groups and treatment foci, therefore can be used in various set tings. This article presents how these specific positive interventions converge with Adlerian therapy.
256 J. Steve Hamm, Jon Carlson, and Bengu Erguner-Tekinalp
Adlerian Theory as a Positive Therapy
Although not given credit by positive psychology researchers, Individual Psychology as the original positive psychology has been discussed by Adlerians (Erguner-Tekinalp, 2016; Carlson, Watts, & Maniacci, 2006; Watts, 2015) and by some constructivist humanistic authors within the context of positive psychology (Higgins & Gallagher, 2009). The positive psychol ogy movement has shifted psychology’s focus from understanding disease, weakness, and damage to understanding virtues and strengths, as well as from curing the suffering to building on well-being (Seligman, 2002).
There have been various criticisms of the positive psychology movement: (a) being an American lifestyle, specifically white-middle-class-centered and elitist (Christopher & Hickinbottom, 2008; Fernandez-Rios & Novo, 2012; Miller, 2008; Perez-Alvarez, 2016); (b) ignoring the previous psychological and philosophical context (Cowen & Kilmer, 2002); (c) ignoring the social, cultural, and environmental context of the concepts that are being studied (Fernandez-Rfos & Novo, 2012; McNulty & Fincham, 2012); and (d) lacking an overarching theoretical framework (Cowen & Kilmer, 2002). In this sense, as a holistic, strength-based, humanistic approach which focuses on indi viduals’ innate capacity to solve their problems through contributing to oth ers and emphasizes understanding the social cultural context of individuals, Adlerian theory presents itself as a unique approach that can provide a theo retical framework to the positive psychology movement. Adlerian theory’s general framework is closely related to positive psychology in general, and research and interventions in particular.
Adlerian-Based Positive Group Counseling
The following section describes a group counseling model which in tegrated Adlerian theory with positive psychology interventions. Group counseling was implemented with a group of male teenagers in a residen tial treatment center. In addition to their usual group and individual coun seling, these individuals volunteered to participate in a 12-week group counseling program.
The structure of the group closely followed an outline of group sessions and included interventions derived from a 14-session positive psychotherapy curriculum outlined in Magyar-Moe (2009). These interventions were empir ically validated (Seligman et al., 2005). Two interventions (intimate relation ships and family strengths) were not included as they contradicted with this particular population.
Adlerian-based positive group counseling aims to increase positive emo tion, engagement, and meaning by emphasizing individual strengths. The purpose is to teach participants specific skills to identify character strengths,
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and use them effectively with an overarching goal of reducing problems in behavior, emotions, and cognition. The interventions were designed to intentionally target aspects of the clients’ character in the areas of pleasure, engagement, and meaning (Seligman et al., 2005; Rashid, 2008). The group counseling process implemented following Adlerian theoretical framework to understand the members and guide the sessions. Sessions were connected by giving homework and all homework was reviewed in the beginning of each session in terms of their applicability, ease of practice, and barriers in practicing the skills. As an Adlerian-based group counseling, the group’s process was seen as a psychoeducational process helping participants de velop awareness and meet life’s tasks in better ways, emphasizing a growth mindset, personal responsibility, equality, encouragement, and social inter est. Positive psychology interventions fit well with the Adlerian-based group counseling, as Adlerian theory emphasizes respectful, egalitarian, and op timistic relationships understanding clients’ assets, abilities, personal re sources, and contributions (Watts, 2015).
Session 1: Lack of Positive Resources Maintains Psychopathology. The first session began with the facilitator providing an overview of group ex pectations and goals of group counseling. After introductions,…
