Rudolf Dreikurs

Rudolf Dreikurs (born February 8, 1897 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary , † May 25, 1972 in Chicago ) was an Austrian-American psychiatrist , educator and psychologist and a representative of individual psychology .

Life

Rudolf Dreikurs studied medicine in Vienna. The Viennese youth movement awakened in him a feeling for social responsibility and an interest in young people. As a student he organized socialist medical students and was a university representative on the Vienna workers' council . There he met the then deputy chairman of the workers' council of the first district, Alfred Adler . Dreikurs was impressed with how Adler made the experiences from psychiatry and psychotherapy usable for education and how he included the social question in his teaching. After studying and doing his doctorate, Dreikurs devoted himself to questions of social and spiritual hygiene and began to work intensively on individual psychological projects as part of the medical working group around 1930. He gave lectures, conducted courses and published a number of articles. In 1932 his first book, The Nervous Symptom, appeared . The book Introduction to Individual Psychology was no longer distributed in 1933 because of National Socialism in the German Reich and could only be published again in 1969 under the title Basic Concepts of Individual Psychology.

Concerned about the political developments in Austrofascism , Dreikurs emigrated to the USA via Brazil in 1937 . There he was editor of the Individual Psychology News and Individual Psychology Bulletin and founder of the American Journal of Individual Psychology . From 1942 he was professor of psychiatry in Chicago. The Alfred Adler Institute he founded in Chicago today has university status. Dreikurs continued the Viennese tradition of combining neurosis prophylaxis and teacher training in the USA , found access to doctors, psychiatrists and teachers and founded child and parent counseling centers. He became known far beyond the USA through his numerous, generally understandable books, especially on teacher training. On the basis of individual psychology, he developed his own psychotherapeutic school, teleoanalysis . From 1962 he regularly ran international summer courses (ICASSI) for teachers, doctors, psychologists and other professions interested in individual psychology.

plant

Dreikurs wrote over 170 academic and generally understandable books and articles.

“Understanding children, influencing them and correcting their mistakes requires insight into the development of personality because of our views of human nature and especially of our ideas about how children grow and become what they are our behavior towards them be determined.

The desire to be part of a group is inherent in every human being. Because he is a social being and as such can only function fully within a group. As long as he feels that he belongs, he can use his energies for the demands of the given situation, the degree and extent of belonging depend on the development of his sense of community , as Adler put it. Humans are thus already born with the possibility of acting as a social being and developing the necessary sense of community. When fully developed, this includes not only the awareness of having a place, but also the ability and willingness to play a constructive role in life. It is the basis of what can be called “normality”, the basis of collaboration and fulfillment. An insufficiently developed sense of community limits the social function. " (Rudolf Dreikurs in Psychology in the Classroom, e.g. with Klett-Cotta , 2003, p. 32) and

"(...) The child draws conclusions from his experiences with the internal and external environment as to how he can best live together with others. His general attitude towards life forms his lifestyle or life plan. It is the key to the personality of every individual and encompasses unity All actions and every attitude are only sides of this general lifestyle, which is based on the child's basic judgment and inner opinion of himself and his abilities. " (Rudolf Dreikurs in psychology in the classroom , eg with Klett-Cotta , 2003, p. 34)

Dreikurs became known to a broader public through his educational guides, some of which he wrote with his colleagues. Children challenge us: how do we raise them up-to-date? , Children learn from the consequences or discipline without tears are works dedicated to family upbringing. These works are widespread, but have recently also received criticism.

Fonts (selection)

• with Vicki Soltz: Children: The Challenge . 1966
  • with Vicki Soltz: Children challenge us: how do we bring them up in a contemporary way? . Translation by Erik A. Blumenthal. Foreword by Jan-Uwe Rogge. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 19th edition, 2014
• Rudolf three course: Rudolf three course . In: Ludwig J. Pongratz (ed.): Psychotherapy in self-portrayals . Publisher Hans Huber, Bern 1973

literature

• Clara Kenner: Rudolf Dreikurs . In: Der zerrissene Himmel - Emigration and Exis of the Viennese Individual Psychology. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 9783525453209 , pp. 93-99.
• Friedrich Koch : The Kaspar Hauser Effect. About dealing with children . Opladen 1995, pp. 84-108, ISBN 978-3810013590
• Hartmut Siebenhüner: Rudolf Dreikurs - the individual psychological pragmatist . In: Gestalten around Alfred Adler - Pioneers of Individual Psychology , ed. by A. Lévy & G. Mackenthun. Verlag Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2002, pp. 37-62, ISBN 3-8260-2156-8
• Janet Terner & WL Pew: The Courage to Be Imperfect - The Life and Work of Rudolf Dreikurs . Hawthorn Books, New York 1978, ISBN 0-8015-1784-2

Web links

• Literature by and about Rudolf Dreikurs in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Rudolf Dreikurs  in the German Digital Library