“In Adlerian psychology, trauma is definitively denied. This was a very new and revolutionary point. Certainly, the Freudian view of trauma is fascinating. Freud’s idea is that a person’s psychic wounds (traumas) cause their present unhappiness. When you treat a person’s life as a vast narrative, there’s an easily understandable causality and sense of dramatic development that creates strong impressions and is extremely attractive. But Adler, in denial of the trauma argument, states the following: ‘No experience is in itself a cause of our success or failure. We don’t suffer from the shock of our experiences — the so-called trauma — but instead we make out of them whatever suits our purposes. We aren’t determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining.” | The Philosopher in “The Courage to be Disliked”
Reading “The Courage to Be Disliked” by Ichigo Kishimi and Fumitage Koga was a revelatory experience. It is presented as a dialog between a philosopher and an angry student seeking resolution to his dissatisfaction with himself and his life and contains many a hard-hitting note.
This idea, as one hard-hitting example, is one that is explored in detail – the idea that we get to choose the meaning we give our experiences and traumas. It is along the lines of Viktor Frankl’s reflection on human freedoms – which, in turn, is a big part of Stephen Covey’s first habit – be proactive. Once we accept the stimulus, we get to choose the meaning we give it and thus the response.
In effect, suffering is real and so is agency. And meaning is chosen, not inherited.
Over the next days, I’ll share a collection of lessons from this book. A series of sorts as I reflect on these lessons and their implications.
