ABSTRACT
My paper deals with only one technique of Adlerian psychotherapy. But it is an important one. The preceding speaker, Dr. Kurt Adler (2), has referred to it in each of his cases. It is the use of early recollections (ERs). I want to clarify this technique because sometimes there is some difficulty in understanding it. How is it that the Adlerian approach which, in contrast to Freud, emphasizes the present purposes of symptoms and present relationships of the grown-up, and tends not to talk much about the past, does stress ERs? The answer is, as I am sure you have gathered from Dr. Adler’s presentation, that our use of ERs differs from that of other schools of thought. I shall deal here with the Adlerian theoretical basis for the ER technique and some psychotherapeutic applications of it.
