Rudolf Dreikurs: Quasquicentennial

Abstract

Rudolf Dreikurs: Quasquicentennial Marina Bluvshtein In 1933, in his foreword to Rudolf Dreikurs’s Fundamentals of Adlerian Psychology, Alfred Adler wrote that Individual Psychology would have “a permanent influence on the thought, poetry and dreams of humanity” (p. vii). An overview of the life and legacy of Rudolf Dreikurs oftentimes feels like he became that thinker, that poet, and that dreamer, foreseen and welcomed by Adler. Even more, any student of Dreikurs, whether his contemporary or not, will agree that Dreikurs was also the one who, responding to Adler’s call above, used the knowledge “for the purpose of establishing an ideal community” (p. vii). This year is special in the Adlerian movement, as we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the North American Society of Adlerian Psychology (NASAP) (which started as the American Society of Adlerian Psychology, or ASAP, in 1952); the 70th anniversary of the Journal of Individual Psychology (which replaced Individual Psychology Bulletin and which Dreikurs started as the American Journal of Individual Psychology); and the 70th anniversary of Adler University (started as Alfred Adler Institute of Chicago in 1952 by Dreikurs and Harold Mosak). Finally, this is a quasquicentennial commemoration of Rudolf Dreikurs, born on February 8, 1897. In this special issue of the Journal of Individual Psychology, I see two interesting challenges, both of which arguably express my own lifestyle challenges. One challenge is to try to cover it all, spotlighting myriad areas, social and clinical, that filled Dreikurs’s scholarship, that attracted his clinical genius, and that connected his own lifeline and the Adlerian movement. But how can one journal issue cover it all? Another challenge is not to repeat what has been thoroughly discussed, his famous “Dreikurs sayings,” what is presumed to be well known, what is already easily accessible, and what may not need any expansion or explanation. But, given the scarcity of contemporary clinical research about Dreikurs and an abundance of the proverbial “Dreikurs said,” how can we know what is really known? Dreikurs once wrote about the dangers of the law of the excluded middle. It is in an attempt to avoid those dangers that I invite you to see this special issue as more of a metaphorical line, connecting the points, creating a most representative central tendency, and not excluding any points [End Page 285] or observations for appearing scattered or distant—because all of them, equally, contribute to the core understanding of our topic. The line will hopefully resolve the two challenges mentioned earlier, forming a story line for this special issue. You can tune in to the interview with Eva Dreikurs Ferguson by Anabella Shaked, read fragments of Dreikurs’s never-published letters (Bluvshtein and Hilliard), listen to never-before-shared memories about him (Walton, Sperry, and Mendel), or be inspired by the living spirit of ICASSI, the Adlerian summer schools (Balla). Several other articles further build this line by offering a new look at Dreikurs’s legacy in politics and social participation (Landscheidt), expanding his four phases of Adlerian therapy to working with couples (Berman Alon, Fradkin, Karmi, and Nahum Leumi), revisiting his contributions to music therapy and vision of music as social harmonizer (Eriksson), and providing a refresher on multiple therapy, one of his most innovative practices (Garrison). Finally, in this special issue, please listen to new voices—of younger practitioners, the ones who will carry Dreikurs’s ideas forward for decades to come. These include Chupron’s brave exploration of The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky through the lens of Children: The Challenge, Frantz’s case study demonstrating Dreikurs’s wisdom on democracy and equality, Reed and Urban’s close look at juvenile transfer to adult court, and Griesel and Hovinen’s work on adolescents and conflict. Having started this introduction with a quote from Alfred Adler, I want to conclude with one by Rudolf Dreikurs in the same book: We know that the most advanced minds are working along the same lines as we do, and we share with all advanced thinkers the desire to help the race to find a real community of all human beings, which will recognize instead of superior and inferior beings only fellow beings and fellow workers. (p. 112) On...