Typical Personal Prerequisites for the Problems of Clients in psychotherapy and its Purpose in the Works of S. Freud and A. Adler from the Perspective of an Integrative Approach

Abstract

Background. Currently, there are many different theories of psychotherapy, which are united by the general position that the most important prerequisites for the problems of psychotherapy clients are their personality traits, from which the main goal of psychotherapeutic practice follows, which is to help clients eliminate these preconditions. However, they lack a single, common understanding of what these premises and the goal of psychotherapy are. In an earlier article (Kapustin, 2014a), as a result of the analysis of E. Fromm’s works, three basic theoretical provisions were formulated that constitute the basis proposed by ourselves integrative approach to understanding the personal prerequisites of the problems of clients in psychotherapy and its purpose. This allows us to consider the different points of view on these issues contained in world-famous theories of psychotherapy by S. Freud, A. Adler, C. Jung, C. Rogers and V. Frankl from a unified, common position. The first of them characterizes the objective property of human life inherent in its very nature, the second is the typical personal prerequisites for the problems of clients of psychotherapy, the third is the purpose of psychotherapy. However, this article did not provide any justification for the stated capabilities of the integrative approach.

Objectives. The goal is to analyze the theoretical ideas of the typical personal prerequisites of the problems of clients in psychotherapy and its purpose contained in the works of S. Freud and A. Adler from the position of an integrative approach, demonstrating its stated capabilities on the basis of these two different theories.

Results. It is shown that the theoretical ideas of these authors about the typical personal prerequisites of the problems of clients in psychotherapy and its purpose can be considered as a special variant of three more general basic provisions of the integrative approach.

Conclusions. Ideas of S. Freud and A. Adler about the typical personal prerequisites for the problems of clients of psychotherapy and its purpose, despite obvious theoretical differences, nevertheless allow for the possibility of considering them from a unified, common position set by the three basic provisions of the integrative approach. Thus, an integrative approach on the basis of these two psychotherapeutic theories gets a certain theoretical justification for its stated capabilities.