On the outskirts of the thousand-year-old city lived a philosopher who taught that the world was simple and that happiness was within the reach of every man, instantly. A young man, dissatisfied with life, went to visit this philosopher to get to the heart of the matter. This youth found the world a chaotic mass of contradictions and, in his anxious eyes, any notion of happiness was completely absurd.
If we focus on cause and effect—past trauma equals present effect—we end up with determinism, that is to say, that our present and future have already been determined by past occurrences and are unalterable.
The student presents the example of his friend, a lonely guy ridden by anxiety, which prevents him from going out or leaving his house. We may observe that he became physically unable to move outside his apartment, and we might start to think of all that has happened and whatever trauma led him to behave this way.
Yet, Adlerian psychology focuses not on past “causes” but on present “goals.”
We think the friend is anxious, so he can’t go out. But what if he doesn’t want to go out and, therefore, creates a state of anxiety? This achieves the goal of “not going out.”
There is a difference between etiology (the study of causation) and teleology (the study of the purpose of a given phenomenon rather than its cause). As long as we focus on etiology, we cannot take a step forward.
Most arguments concerning so-called traumas are typical of etiology. They focus on consoling you and telling you, “It’s not your fault.”
But Adler, in denial of the trauma argument, states:
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“No experience is in itself a cause of our success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences—the so-called trauma—but instead, we make out of them whatever suits our purposes. We are not determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining.”
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Adler does not deny that childhood calamity shapes our personality; its influences are strong. But the key difference is that nothing is actually determined by those influences. We determine our lives depending on the meaning we give to those experiences.
The philosopher notes, in the friend’s story, that if this man does not go out, his parents will worry about him and give him attention. But, on the contrary, if he steps out, he becomes nobody—no one will worry about him. Currently, he has his parents and friends concerned about him.
How often are people unhappy with who they are, yet Adlerian psychology believes:
“The important thing is not what one is born with but what use one makes of that equipment.” To be unhappy is also a self-serving goal.