Adler Essay

590 Words3 Pages
“Enabling people to hide their inflated self-image and to maintain their current life style”, is how Adler described means of safeguarding tendencies. In our everyday lives, Adler’s responses of the safeguarding tendencies are shown to us. Excuses people use for situations or behaviors are in order to try and protect their own self (Feist, J., Feist, G., and Roberts 2013). Excuses, aggression and withdrawal are the three safeguarding tendencies. The most common, and given to us first, is excuses. “Yes, but” or “If only” is expressed in context (Feist, J., Feist, G., and Roberts, 2013, p. 85). A person tries to protect oneself by making excuses to explain their actions, or blame someone else to save face or even at times try to mislead the other person with true facts. In Genesis 3:11-13, our Holy Bible expresses this where Adam blamed Eve for his eating of the forbidden fruit. Given to us secondly is aggression. Aggression is made up of three parts and they are depreciation, accusation and self-accusation. Depreciation is noticed when a person overvalues their own achievements and undervalues others achievements. When a person wants to put blame to others and not accepting the truth that they are to blame is accusation. Self-accusation is found when a person commits suicide, self-torture of oneself or depression causing hurt to those that the love and are the closest to them (Feist, J., Feist, G., and Roberts, 2013, p. 82). In Hebrews 3:13, we are taught to encourage one another daily. James 1:19 teaches us to be quick to listen, speak slowly and not to be angry on the spur of the moment. I Corinthians teach us that our body is the Temple of God and we should never inflict any harm to our very own body. When a person has a problem they tend to set distance between themselves and the problem, and this is withdrawal. Adler expressed the four (4) modes
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