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The Psychology of Courage
NASAP Tap Talk
March 25, 2010
Julia Yang and Al Milliren
Governors State University
Mark Blagen
Adler School of Professional Psychology
The Music of Courage:
Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3
Beethoven had to transition from keyboard to composition
when he began to develop deafness. It was in this
transformational process that he moved from contemplating
suicide to finishing the masterpiece of Piano Concerto No. 3
which was considered his first ‘new self.’
In the face of adversities and obstacles, how do some
individuals retreat to the neurotic style of behaviors while
others seem to retain their strengths and continue living? Is
neurosis curable? Is it possible for one to be in harmony with
oneself when life seems to be full of contradictions and when
problems of living appear so demanding?
Problems of the 20th Century and
Psychological Responses
Apathy
o
o
Affectlessness
A Psychology o fear:
(psychology resolution by recognition and
description of fear and anxiety)
o Mental heath defined as the absence of
mental illness
Tasks of Life
Problems and solutions are inseparable
It is through the training of these life tasks that the
individual is connected to the world with his/her
abilities to cooperate and contribute.
Attitudes toward society:
our approaches toward life tasks (i.e. homework on
this earth)
Life plan: unique style of getting there
Basic and existential life tasks
Basic Life Tasks Defined
Work: contribution to the welfare of others
Friendship: embracing social relationships
with comrades and relatives
Love: the most intimate union and represents
the strongest and closest emotional
relationship that can exist between two
human beings
What are we afraid of?
In response to our fear,
what do people think, feel
and do?
The Evasion of Life Tasks
Avoiding life challenges/
Responsibilities
Focus only one or two tasks but neglect
the rest
Habits of avoiding dealing with fears
Bad compensations: Fear based
striving
Consequence: What we fear may just
come true
The “No” Attitudes
The aggressive character traits: vanity, ambition,
playing God, jealousy, envy, and greed—all are
connected in hostility, negligence, and the need to
dominate and to be right or “better than.”
The non-aggressive traits: withdrawal, anxiety,
timidity, absence of social grace, and the detour
syndromes such as laziness, frequent change of
occupations, petty crimes, or “less than” attitudes
The No Attitudes
The “Yes” Attitudes
Do you worry? How does worry help
you? Is the cost of worrying greater than
the cost of changing? What is the
purpose of your worrying? What stops
you from changing? What are some of
your “Yes”, “Yes/But”, and “No” attitudes
toward solving the problem you are
worried about?
Problems of Social Living
It is all about “ the relationship of the individual to the
problems of the outside world”
Love
Work
Friends
Self
Universe
Sample Socratic Questions
Work: What constitutes your work, your activities, in life? What
meaning does it have for you? How do you get along with
colleagues, supervisors, and subordinates? Do you feel appreciated
for your work?
Love: What are your love relationships like? Do you experience
emotional closeness with partners? Do you have any difficulty in
expressing or receiving love and affection to and from others? How
would you describe men and women? How do you feel about your
self as a man or woman? What do you complain about in your
partner? What does your partner complain about in you?
Friendship: Who are your friends and what kind of life do you have in
your community? Where do you meet your friends? What activities
do you do with them? What is your role with them? How would they
describe you? Was making friends easy for you? Who was (were)
your best friend growing up?
Social Interest: What Is It?
Gemeinschaftsgefuhl:
social feeling, community feeling, fellow
feeling, sense of solidarity, communal
intuition, community interest, social
sense, and social interest.
The ability to cooperate and contribute.
Social interest is
“to see with the eyes of another, to
hear with the ears of another, to feel
with the heart of another” (ansbacher
& Ansbacher, 1956, p.135).
Abilities of Cooperation and
Contribution
The child and the mother/care taker
The ability to give and take
A part of the whole
The willingness to accept (the good
and the bad)
I am here: Immediate problem solving
What impairs the development?
Abilities of Cooperation and
Contribution
Readiness to demand less than
one offers
No expectation of rewards
Personal benefit < general welfare
The feeling of self worth
The feeling of usefulness
Social evolution
What impairs the development?
What Is Mental Health?
Successful coping with the challenges
of life where social interest is
manifested in the tasks of life.
Health is the capacity (a dynamic
balance) to overcome disease.
More on Mental Health
The cure of apathy via the courage for
community feeling
The extent to which the individual
experiences belonging/significance via
contribution and cooperation
A Measure of Mental Health
What is Courage?
Adlerian Psychology
Courage is to risk cooperation and
contribution via the demands of life
tasks (i.e. to work, to love, to relate, to
be and to believe) that lead to the sense
of community feeling.
The Courage to Spiritual Wellbeing:
The Will to Power
Will—a basic feature of our existence
* According to nature, we want to live
* To live is to achieve the tasks set for us
Power—the ability to overcome disease
and suffering.
More on Courage
Tillich described courage as “…the power of
life to affirm itself in spite of this ambiguity…”
--The Courage to Be
May (1983) suggested that the concept of will
to power implies ‘generalization’ or ‘self
actualization’, as an expansion of one’s self.
—The discovery of being
The Courage to Strive
Means self actualization
A call to man to affirm himself in his
existence with strength and
commitment.
Is built into every individual
Requires the courageous living out of
the potentialities in our own existence
Striving: Direction and Movement
all human striving originates from a
sense of inferiority that propels our will
to power to make belief.
The will to power as a psychological
force in relation to the striving for
superiority as a compensatory response
to inferiority
Overcoming
a process of creative energy desiring to
exert one’s will in self-overcoming and
interaction with the world
It leads us to either normal selfenhancement in the interest of others,
or a safeguarding tendency endlessly
striving for perfection
Movement of Striving and Overcoming:
Life Style
The creative power of
each individual generates
movement toward his/her
unique life goals that
were established early in
life. In this movement, our
emotions, thoughts, and
behaviors are consistent
with our private logic as
well as our style of life.
Our life style is a map of
how we creatively move
from the feelings of
incompletion to
completion, in other
words, from feelings of
being “less than” to the
goal of perfection.
Notes on Life Style
“the entire individual life line has the tendency
toward overcoming, a striving for superiority”
Our life style is a map of how we creatively
move from the feelings of incompletion to
completion, in other words, from feelings of
being “less than” to the goal of perfection.
Know Thyself
…is to know one’s direction in life,
how one relates to world, self, and
others via the five life tasks.
(See handout Figure of Life Movement and Attitudes.)
The Courage to Belong
When we successfully meet these life tasks,
we express an essential feeling of belonging.
This feeling of belonging, of having a place
with our fellow humans, mitigates the
experience of fear, loneliness, and
desperation. Our sense of belonging gives
us—courage-and in many cases,
confidence—as we move toward our personal
and collective goals in life. (Sonstegard and
Bitter)
The Courage of Recovery
Addiction is an effective way of evading life
tasks for the individuals who lack courage to
participation in their social relationships.
Giving hope to the hopeless: the A.A.
community approach
Fake it till you make it, progress not
perfection, do the next right thing, it works if
you work it…
Community Feeling at Work:
The Courage of Recovery
…We are people who normally would not mix. But
there exists among us a fellowship, a friendliness, and
an understanding which is indescribably wonderful.
We are like the passengers of a great liner the moment
after rescue from shipwreck when camaraderie,
joyousness and democracy pervade the vessel from
steerage to Captain's table. Unlike the feelings of the
ship's passengers, however, our joy in escape from
disaster does not subside as we go our individual
ways. The feeling of having shared in a common peril
is one element in the powerful cement which binds us.
But that in itself would never have held us together as
we are now joined. …The first requirement is that we
be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be
a success. (Alcoholics Anonymous)
The Courage of In Spite of…
“To venture causes anxiety, but not venture is to lose
oneself”…Availing oneself of possibilities, confronting
the anxiety, and accepting the responsibility and guilt
feeling involved result in increased self-awareness,
freedom, and enlarged spheres of creativity. (May)
The courage to be is the “courage to accept oneself
as accepted in spite of being unacceptable. (Tillich)
To accept is to take, seize, or catch requiring the
“yes, in spite of” attitudes (e.g. faith, hope, love)
We must understand that courage is a social
function, because only the person who considers
himself [or herself] as part of the whole can have
courage. We find courage when a person feels at
home, when he [or she] does not consider merely
the acceptable part of life as belonging to him [or
her], but also the unacceptable things; who
accepts the difficulties in our culture as a task on
which he [or she] has to work to improve the
situation for all. – Adler
Reference
Yang, J., Milliren, A., & Blagen, M. (2010). The psychology of
courage: An Adlerian Handbook for Healthy social living. NY:
Routledge.
http://www.routledgementalhealth.com/the-psychology-of-courage9780415965194