On going

The First Night: Deny Trauma

Why People Can Change

<aside> 💡 Before an effect, there’s a cause (Not true, kind of)

</aside>

In Adlerian psychology, we do not think about past “causes” but rather about present “goals.”
The difference between etiology (the study of causation) and teleology (the study of the purpose of a given phenomenon, rather than its cause).

In Adlerian psychology, trauma is definitively denied.
Adler, in denial of the trauma argument, states the following: “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.”
We determine our own lives according to the meaning we give to those past experiences. Your life is not something that someone gives you, but something you choose yourself, and you are the one who decides how you live.
Story on why fear and anxiety is created by one

People can change!

I am not denying that emotion exists. Everyone has emotions. That goes without saying. But if you are going to tell me that people are beings who can’t resist emotion, I’d argue against that. Adlerian psychology is a form of thought, a philosophy that is diametrically opposed to nihilism. We are not controlled by emotion. In this sense, while it shows that people are not controlled by emotion, additionally it shows that we are not controlled by the past.
If the past determined everything and couldn’t be changed, we who are living today would no longer be able to take effective steps forward in our lives. What would happen as a result? We would end up with the kind of nihilism and pessimism that loses hope in the world and gives up on life.

Look, no matter how much you want to be Y, you cannot be reborn as him. You are not Y. It’s okay for you to be you. However, I am not saying it’s fine to be “just as you are.” If you are unable to really feel happy, then it’s clear that things aren’t right just as they are. You’ve got to put one foot in front of the other, and not stop.