For each life task, we have the freedom to choose the goal direction. These choices are based on the most important decision: strive for individualistic self-elevation (“Self Above Service”) or social contribution (“Service Beyond Self”).
A feeling of encouragement or discouragement at different intensity levels is dependent on the consequences. The use of the term “beyond” in this context suggests that the “self” and “relations” tasks are important developments prior to real “service.” Consequently, real “service” is possible following the establishment of self and relations and is not “above” them and “instead” of them.
A feeling of encouragement or discouragement at different intensity levels is dependent on the consequences. The use of the term “beyond” in this context suggests that the “self” and “relations” tasks are important developments prior to real “service.” Consequently, real “service” is possible following the establishment of self and relations and is not “above” them and “instead” of them.
“Possession psychologists attempt to trace every kind of symptom to the obscure regions of an uncertain heredity or to such environmental influences as are generally regarded as unsuitable. But this does not mean anything for the individual case, because the child receives, digests, and responds to such influences with a certain arbitrariness.
— Ansbacher and Ansbacher, The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler, 1956
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“The group, used in the generic sense, does not need to subdue the individual into a state of conformity. In the best sense it can become an agent of self-understanding and thus an agent of freedom of cooperation. The individual is made more aware and gains greater insight into the consequences of his own style of life, his own characteristic way of operating. As the group accepts him, as he feels accepted, he becomes free. As he recognizes the consequences of his behavior, he begins to modify it. The process is dependent on cooperative non-coercive types of leadership.... Conformity is essentially an evasion of self-understanding, an unwillingness to examine and to become aware, and the giving up of individuality.” — Arnold Buchheimer, Ph.D.
“Self-trust is the essence of heroism.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
"If you let yourself be blown to and fro, you lose touch with your root. If you let restlessness move you, you lose touch with who you are." — Lao-Tzu in the Tao Te Ching