FLORIDA ADLERIAN SOCIETY nEWSLETTER

January / february/ march   2005

F.A.S. presents the 10th Annual Conference

Adlerian Training Institute for

Parenting Personal & Professional Development

February 10, 11, 12, 2005

 

This year’s conference is going to be tremendously exciting.  We are welcoming many outstanding speakers and have a wide variety of topics.  As Treasurer of F.A.S., I am very excited to be part of the board of F.A.S. as we welcome Dr. Roy Kern and his students from Georgia State, Dr. Jason Snow, also from Georgia, Dr. Frank Walton and Dr. Paul Rasmussen from South Carolina, Dr. Al Milliren from Texas, Dr. Wes Wingett from Nebraska, and Dr. Cameron Meredith from Illinois.  These wonderful gentlemen have been very supportive of our organization, returning yearly to present for us, and are very willing to share their Adlerian wisdom with all whom they encounter.  We are also very excited to welcome Dr. William Glasser and are looking forward to learning about the latest in Reality therapy and Choice theory. 

 

We have several new presenters this year and many new topics.  Dr. William Currlette is joining Dr. Kern and they are presenting a workshop on E.R.’s and building a Therapeutic Relationship.  One of our local folks is Thomas Garcia and he is presenting for the first time with us on Chemical Addiction.  We also have several current and past members of the F.A.S. board that are presenting this year, Dr. Tim Evans is presenting on Relationship Counseling, Geri Carter has written a book and is presenting on Parenting Today’s Teenagers, Tony Miller will be teaching us about Counseling and the DSM IV, Jim Teixeira will be talking about the Need for Encouragement, Matt Welch will be showing us how to Parent Experientially and Randy Gainforth is sharing his interest in Taoist Tai Chi.  Thanks to all of our wonderful presenters for your social interest and valuable contributions.

 

Put your listening ears on!  On February 8th at 1:00pm, WMNF 88.5 FM is doing a radio interview featuring Dr. Glasser.  Rob Lorei will be conducting the interview and welcomes your questions and feedback.  Rob and WMNF were presented with the FAS Social Interest Award last year for their mission to build community and promote equality, social and economic justice and peace.

 

Many of the books and video’s, etc., that these presenters have written and/or recommend are for sale at our Book Store during the conference and it will be possible to get them autographed during the reception on Friday afternoon.  Also in our bookstore, are about 110 other books, tapes, and videos that cover a wide variety of topics to fit any need for information that you have. 

 

It’s the greatest experience in the world to be in the presence of such educated Adlerians as they share their knowledge, skills and themselves with us!  So come and join us at this wonderful learning event!

                                         A Publication of the Florida Adlerian Society 2005

Editors Corner 

By Lisa Pergament Runyon

 

            Well, it’s already that time again.  Our conference is right around the corner and all the last minute details are being attended to. Our conference is February 10 – 12, at the USF Phyllis Marshall Center and we have a great line up of presenters and topics.

 

Our Holiday Social was a wonderful time.  We had a nice group of people, lots of delicious food and merriment. 

 

 Our current newsletter features an article by Dr. Tim Evans and an article by Dr. Roy Kern.  Both of these gentlemen are presenting at our conference this year and have lots of Adlerian knowledge to share.  Tim’s article is on the dangers of perfection-ism.  Roy’s article is a reprint from our 2002 newsletter and as he is presenting this year on a new way to use E.R.’s, I thought that this article would be a nice way to get a head start on understanding the usefulness of E.R.’s in learning about one’s lifestyle.

 

Congratulations to: FAS !!!

We finally got our website back up and running.  Our web address is:

www.adlerflorida.org  So check our new and improved up-to-date website!  Thanks Joe for working so hard on this.

 

Don’t forget to tell your friends, family, co-workers and clients to attend the community event with Dr. Glasser, Thursday, Feb. 11 from 7 – 8:30pm at the Junior League of Tampa, 87 Columbia Drive, on Davis Island.

 

Florida Adlerian Society

Board of Directors (2005-2006)

 

President:  Randall Gainforth

Vice-President:  Nicola Haddak

Secretary:  Stacy Henderson

Conference Coordinator:  Charla Conroy

Treasurer: Lisa Pergament Runyon

Executive Director: Tim Evans

Director:  Tony Miller

Director:  Ross Cannon

Director:  Lolita Grohmann

Director:  Becky Razaire

Director:  Matt Welch

Director:  Geri Carter

Director:  Gloria Harvey

 

            Articles for inclusion in the newsletter are encouraged and requested.  The deadline for quarterly publication is the 1st of March, June, September and December for publication the following month. 

 

Advertising rates for 4 issues, based on page size of  8 1/2 x 11 inches, with 1/2 inch margins on all four sides.  All ads must be copy-ready, black and white.

 

Full page - $100           Three-Quarter page - $75

One-Half page - $50      One-Quarter page - $25

One-Third page - $38          Business Card - $15

           

 

            Membership in the Florida Adlerian Society is open to all people interested in the  Adlerian concepts.  Membership is based on a year that runs from February to January, for an annual fee of $20 per person.       





 

 

 

 

Happiness Lies in Being Ordinary  

 

by Dr. Timothy Evans

 

I once had a couple seek counseling because he was convinced there was a correct way to decorate a Christmas tree.  This created great misery for all the family members.

Sometimes the quest for significance consumes a person’s life.  This is particularly true in the life of the perfectionist.  For the perfectionist, it’s imperative that whatever they have planned, even to the smallest dinner party, must go perfectly, without a hitch.  They make lists upon lists; in order to make sure whatever they do is flawless.

            In general, people who strive for perfection unknowingly want to be the best.  They tend to be overly responsible and find it impossible to compromise the standards they have set for themselves.  Whatever they do, it has to be the best, not almost perfect, but perfectly perfect.

            It is important the perfectionist comes to grips with the tremendous price they pay.  The perfectionist, will be over-involved, over-extended, bringing high level of stress, and fatigue to their lives.  For perfectionists, they reason it is only human nature to “do your best.”  Perfectionists have such high standards they can never be happy, no matter how well things go.

            Those who live and work with such a person often give up wanting to cooperate.  They realize there is no way they can measure up to the high standards.  Consequently, they may do nothing, and feel resentful of the perfectionist’s “goodness of excellence.”        A healthier approach to finding significance is by having the courage to be imperfect.   Instead of striving to do your best, simply function, contribute, and let the chips fall where they may.  Learn to accept mistakes as a part of life.  The only way not to make a mistake is to stay in bed all day.  More damage to our self-worth is due to the interpretation of the mistake than the mistake itself.  To make a mistake gracefully and without shame is an essential requirement for living.

Real happiness is not possible with unrealistic standards.  To gain some sense of inner peace, we need to have a degree of self-acceptance.  The most tortured and miserable human beings are those who strive to convince themselves and others that they are something other than themselves.  They fail to realize that happiness lies in being ordinary and having others to love.

If you live long enough, trouble will reach you.  Some individuals experience more heartache than others.  It is not equally distributed.  Trouble will occur because we are human.  Perfectionism will not prevent bad things from happening, just like it could not prevent the Titanic from sinking.  Perfectionism will create criticism and self-blame that leads to greater misery in the world. We are all going to make some bad choices and mistakes along the way, but that does not mean we are a mistake!

 

 

 

Rose-Colored View of the World

 

Roy M. Kern, Susan Belangee and Daniel Eckstein

 

Adler believed that through life experiences, we create events/beliefs in systematic ways that relate to lifestyle. It is as if we are looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. We view the world in a certain way. We then venture out looking for experiences that validate our view of the world. It is also analogous to how we put on socks (e.g., always left foot first, then right foot). We only remember those things that fit and have meaning to our lifestyle.

 

Adler indicated that a technique the clinician could use to assess the individuals “Rose Colored Glasses View of the World” was to employ the early recollection technique. Adler stated that early recollections (ERS) are reminders one carries with him/her that identifies one’s limits and meanings of life’s circumstances. Dreikurs referred to early recollections, or ERS, as “the music behind the words.”  We see ERS as representing the unedited content of memories we carry with us that confirm our immaculate perception of how we attack life’s problems. To follow we have presented to the reader some important questions, procedures, and suggestions as to how the clinician may implement this technique created by Adler some eighty years ago.

 

TYPICAL QUESTIONS AND ISSUES RELATED TO ERS

 

One question frequently ask by individuals who are somewhat suspicious of the approach is the statement that we usually are only going to remember the most discouraging events in our early childhood and thus how can one make any sense out of the person’s total lifestyle. We generally have three types of ERS reported to us by clients. There are those that are uncomfortable, traumatic, or discouraging, those that are enjoyable, and those that are ambiguous.  Thus there is no evidence to confirm that we only remember the most distasteful events in our lives.  Another frequent question is  “What if you remember something because your parents told you about it?” Adler would have said that this was not an ERS, but rather a report. Reports usually do not have feelings associated with them.

 

If someone says they can’t remember anything, Adlerians would propose that this is not a movement by the client toward resistances, but rather poor goal alignment between the client and the therapist. At other times when an individual has difficulty remembering ERS it could be due to some form of unreported trauma in the client’s life. If it seems to be neither of these we suggest that you have the client create early recollections.  A research study by the first author shows that these ERS are as valuable as those generated by the client from one’s real life experiences.                                                                              


 

What if the clinician is confronted with the ultimate threat to ones self esteem and a therapist, which is: “What if I collected the ERS and still cannot make sense of them?”   Our response is do not panic! Other possible techniques the clinician may employ to elicit additional information are to ask the following questions.

 

-Think of your favorite story or passage in the Bible. What is it?

-What is your favorite cartoon?

-What is your favorite fairy tale?

-What is your favorite comic book character?

-A final valuable projective technique that works well with children is to request the child to identify the three of their favorite animals in the jungle.

 

Since we believe in purposeful behavior we assume that the client remembers the above materials because it fits with one’s belief system or lifestyle. In other words a person regardless of the stimulus statement will put apply his/her rose colored glasses on whatever you ask them to discuss. One must keep in mind when analyzing projective information that the information reported by the client may be viewed from two distinct perspectives. First the information provided by the client is reflecting events when their lifestyle/belief system is getting them in trouble and not working for them.  We have also found that when the client reports information that is extremely positive we have found it is useful to view this information as how life is when their chosen lifestyle and belief system accompanying their lifestyle is working for them. In other words one set of ERS may give you information on what life is like for me as well as information on how I would like it to be.

 

WHY USE ERS?

 

To follow are some to the major reasons we believe are important when employing this projective technique.

 

1. They give us, as clinicians, clues about a client’s lifestyle or cognitive belief system, which the client uses to keep himself/herself out of trouble as well as in trouble.

 

2. They can help you understand the best way of interacting with the client. For example if the ERS reflect A controlling style of dealing with life’s problems the clinician may wish to present information in a more tentative way. For example:  I could be wrong but could it be¼¼¼

 

3. ERS provide you and the client insight on how one solves major problems related to life’s tasks (work, social relationships, and intimate relationships).

 

4. They can be used as tools to educate people on how their thinking helps them solve problems.

 

5. ERS can provide the clinician with important information on the connection of one’s between belief system and somatic illnesses.

 

6. Over the years the first author has had times when he would complete a total lifestyle interview with the client and then collect the ERS and find that his hunch as to the lifestyle of the individual was in contradiction with the ERS. Thus we believe ERS can serve as a validating process for the lifestyle interview. When you get conflicting information between ERS and other interview information trust the ERS.

 

HOW TO COLLECT EARLY RECOLLECTIONS?

 

Presently there are numerous ways in which Adlerians collect ERS with their clients. To follow is our suggested approach and the one that has been employed to teach graduate students for the last 25 years by the first author. To follow are the steps that we believe one could use as ways of acquiring valuable data related to the ERS process.

 

1. Inform the client that you will be recording information on paper to conduct this segment of the interview. Begin by stating  “Now that we have objective information about your lifestyle, I want to get at more subjective information on how you solve life’s problems. One technique I use to do this is called an early recollections technique. What I want you to do is to think back as far as you can remember, preferably before the age of 10, and tell me an early memory or recollection of an event that has a feeling associated with it.”

 

2. As the client provides the information on the ERS, it is important for the clinician to reframe from using clarification questions that may lead the client. The clinician is most interested in receiving as much unedited information as possible. Any attempt by the clinician to ask too early in the process to clarify information may interfere with the process.

 

3. When the client has finished recalling the memory, the clinician should then ask,  “What was your feeling during that point in time?”

 

4.  We believe if the client does not identify a clear affect word it is permissible for the clinician to probe or clarify. If the client still cannot identify a feeling word, then the clinician may question if the ERS is a report verses and early recollection.

 

5.  Next, ask the client to take a snapshot of the most vivid part of the memory and have him/her tell you what the snapshot is. You might wish to use this statement. “Now I’d like you to focus on the most vivid part of that memory. If you were to take a picture or snapshot of the most vivid part of that memory, what would it be?” or “If you could freeze a frame of that ERS that you just gave me what would it be?”

 

6.  Record this on paper and then request the client to identify the most vivid feeling associated with this snapshot or freeze frame.             

 

7.  Generally we suggest that the clinician collect three to four ERS that include the forgoing procedure.  For us, however, the rule of thumb is if four does not give you enough information collect as many as needed.

 

     Just a quick reminder to all

of our loyal members, that

you do not have to pay

for late registration fees

when attending the

 

 

10th ANNUAL

CONFERENCE

Featuring

DR. WILLIAM GLASSER

Will be held on

FEBRUARY 10 – 12.

 

 

There is also a

Community Event,

An evening with Dr. Glasser

On FEBRUARY 10th

At the Junior League of Tampa

From 7 pm – 8:30pm

$12 at the door,

Book signing available.

 

 

We hope that all of you can attend these events and

please feel free to share this information with your friends, family, co-workers and clients.

 

We look forward to seeing you.

If you have any questions, please contact our Conference Coordinator, Charla Conroy

@ 813-662-2795

 

CALENDAR OF SOCIAL EVENTS

 

 

February 10 - 12,                   Florida Adlerian Society 10th Annual Conference,

2005                              U.S.F., Phyllis Marshall Center, Tampa, FL 

Contact: Dr. Tim Evans @ (813) 251-8484 or TimEnc@AOL.com

 

June 16 - 19                 North American Society of Adlerian Psychology, 53rd

2005                              Annual Conference, Tucson, Arizona

For more information go to: www.alfredadler.org  annual conference 

 

July 17 – 30th               International Adl