Article from Counseling Today April 2013
This brief, encouragement-focused counseling process integrates Adlerian and constructive theory and practice perspectives and can be useful for work with diverse populations in a variety of settings. An integration of cognitive, existential-humanistic, psychodynamic, and systemic perspectives, Adierian counseling theory is a holistic, phenomenological, socially oriented and teleological (goal-directed) approach to understanding and working with people. Furthermore, Adierian counseling theory is a relational constructivist approach and affirms that people must be understood contextually because it is in our relationships that we understand ourselves, others and the world around us. Counseling theories tend to focus on either the individual or the collective. Adierian counseling is a healthy balance between these two perspectives. Adierian counseling theory affirms that knowledge is socially embedded and relationally distributed but also affirms that humans are creative, proactive, meaning-making individuals who have the ability to choose and be responsible for their choices. Because Adierian counseling is a relational constructivist approach, it accounts for both the social-embedded nature of human knowledge and the personal agency of creative and self-reflective individuals within relationships. Given that Adierian counseling is a relational constructivist approach, it makes sense that it shares significant common ground with various constructive perspectives on counseling, including cognitive constructivist and personal construct therapies, solution-focused brief therapy and narrative therapy.