The+Dreikurs

Rudolf Dreikurs

Dreikurs was an American psychiatrist and educator who developed Alfred Adler's system of individual psychology into a pragmatic method for understanding the purposes of misbehavior in children and for stimulating cooperative behavior without punishment or reward. His primary focus was on pre-adolescents, and he reasoned that their problem behavior resulted from feelings of lack of significance in their social group. He described four "mistaken goals" that such children would resort to, and outlined the most effective ways teachers and parents can respond. He saw the family as the first social setting in which education takes place, with the school environment as an extension of the family. Thus, his techniques for preventing misbehavior and encouraging appropriate behavior could be applied equally in both settings. Dreikurs' work continues through the training centers he and his colleagues established to train counselors in addressing the social problems of youth.

Dreikurs, suggested that human misbehavior is the result of feeling a lack of belonging to one's social group. When this happens the child acts from one of four "mistaken goals": undue attention, power, revenge or avoidance (inadequacy).

[|Mistaken Goal Chart]

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