Landing : Athabascau University

Do you agree with the notion that Alfred Adler's "social interest" is related to God's "Love your neighbour as yourself"

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By Janelle Stables 22 April 2019 @ 5:12pm
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15564223.2000.12034560

Hello students!  Being a Christian woman, I was seeking out therapeutic techniques that would not overtly encrouch on client's beliefs, as most professional settings I assume require the therapist to not impose their personal spiritual beliefs on their clients etc.  I came across this Journal article called, "Adlerian Counseling: A Viable Approach for Contemporary Practice" by Richard Watts (2000) and on page 17, he includes a small section on spirituality. 

Watts notes, "the most common Adlerian position toward religion is positive, viewing God as the concept of perfection...For Adler, religion was a manifestation of social interest.  The cardinal tenet of Adlerian thoery is social interest, and Adler equated it with the mandate to 'love one's neighbor as oneself' and the Golden Rule.  Adler's placement of social interest at the pinnacle of his value theory is in the traditions of those religions that stress people's responsibility for each other" (p. 17).

If you are a Chrisitian student, would you also draw this comparison? 

I personally made this connection immediately upon reading his concepts on "social interest", and when I read this article, I felt Watts (2000) articulated this connection eloquently and appropriately. 

 

Thoughts?

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