Alfred Adler's Theory of Psychological Birth Order (Family Constellation)

By:  Kimberly Swanson, MS-Psy, CNA

According to Adler, the sequence in a person’s life is developed by the age of five (Murdock, 2013).  This is due to genetics and a person’s upbringing and surroundings, personal outlook and lifestyle is molded during the earlier years of life and it is very hard to alter (Adler, 1929/1965).  In early life, children are very vulnerable; this was observed by Adler and he speculated that humans at the beginning of life feel inferior or insignificant (Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1956).

Family constellations occurs when the family has determines the critical developmental stages of their offspring (Murdock, 2013); this is when the birth order theory comes into play with individual psychology (Murdock, 2013).  The biological order is the order in which a child is born among their siblings and the psychological birth order is how the biological order affects the child’s outlook, behaviors and outcomes in life.

According to Murdock (2013), the first child is usually the ones who get the most parental attention and usually they interact well with adults.  But when the second child is born, the first usually feel that they have lost some of the attention (dethroned) (Adler, 1927/1969). Often times, the oldest are held responsible or have to look after the younger siblings. When the oldest child becomes an adult, they tend to like authoritative roles in jobs or in positions. The middle child often times feel like they are sandwiched or squeezed in the middle, whereas the youngest child gets the center of attention (Murdock, 2013).

References

Adler, A.  (1969). The science of living (H.L. Ansbacher & R.R. Ansbacher, eds. & Trans).  New York:  Doubleday.  (Original work published 1929). 

Ansbacher, H. & Ansbacher, R.  (Eds).   (1956). The individual psychology of Alfred Adler.  New York:  Basic Books.

Murdock, N.L.  (2013). Theories of counseling & psychotherapy (3rd ed.).  Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Pearson.

Copyright in 2016 by ©Messenger Publishing, Inc.

Carl Rogers (Psychologist) - Biography

By Kimberly Swanson, M.S.- PSY, CNA

Dr. Carl Rogers (Psychologist)

In 1902, Rogers was born in Oak Park, Illinois.  Dr. Rogers received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin in 1924, a M.A. from Columbia University in 1928, and his Ph.D. in psychotherapy from Columbia University in 1931 (Hall, 1997).  In 1940, Rogers became a professor at Ohio State University where he taught psychology and remained until 1945. He then transferred to the University of Chicago in 1945 where he served as the professor of psychology and the executive secretary at the Counseling Center (Hall, 1997). In 1957, he worked at the University of Wisconsin in the school of psychology and psychiatry.  He later continued to work at various colleges and universities.

Carl Rogers is a psychologist who has written 16 books and several articles on human personality (Journal Psyche, 2015).  Rogers developed techniques which reshaped therapy dynamics.  In traditional setting, the therapeutic relationships were based on the ideologies and principles of psychologists such as Freud and others; their ideologies suggested that that psychotherapist guides the patient and the patient follows the doctor’s lead (Journal Psyche, 2015).  American psychotherapist, Carl Rogers, created the non-directive, client-centered, technique to therapy, which emphasized person-to person interaction between the psychotherapist and the client (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2016);  the client is the one who makes the decision as to how long the sessions will last for treatments (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2016).

Rogers suggested that the psychologist and patient dynamics would more efficient if there is a mutual understanding between the two.  Rogers expanded his theory to include the theorization of personality learning, cross-cultural relationship, and etc. within the field of counseling and psychology (Journal Psyche, 2015). 

References

Encyclopedia Britannica (2016).  Carl R. Rogers.  Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carl-R-Rogers.

Hall, K.J.  (1997). Carl Rogers.  Retrieved from http://muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/rogers.htm#Biography.

Journal Psyche.  (2015). Revisiting Carl Rogers Theory of Personality.  Retrieved from http://journalpsyche.org/revisiting-carl-rogers-theory-of-personality/.

Copyright in 2016 by ©Messenger Publishing, Inc.