ABSTRACT
To our knowledge, this chapter on Adlerian couples therapy with men is the first scholarly work to directly blend Adlerian therapeutic ideas with recent ideas generated from the new psychology of men and masculinity. In developing his theory, Alfred Adler (strongly influenced by his wife Raissa; Balla, 2003) accounted for the influence of gender socialization in looking at the mental health of men and women (Adler, 1992/1927). Whereas Freud initially framed masculinity in psychosexuality and a biologically oriented drive, focusing on the Oedipal complex (for boys this addressed rivalry with the father and the fear of castration), Adler looked at gender development in a more psychologically oriented, subjective psychology created in a sociopolitical context that fully considered the influence of cultural and societal factors (Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1956). Adlerian theory provides our theoretical context, yet we both adopt a masculine sensitive approach (see Englar-Carlson & Shepard, 2005; Englar-Carlson & Stevens, 2006; Englar-Carlson, Stevens, & Scholz, 2010; Stevens & Englar-Carlson, 2010) in tailoring psychotherapy to consider how gender socialization affects men and women. Because it is beyond the purview of this chapter to review the basics of Adlerian psychology, the interested reader is referred to Carlson and Englar-Carlson’s (2008) paper. This chapter examines the application of Adlerian couple’s therapy with male clients, looks at the blending of masculine-sensitive psychology with the Adlerian approach, and then presents a case example.
