Adlerian Commentary on the Case of Party Animal - Coursework Example

Adlerian Commentary on Corey Delaney [Client’s Name] June 9, 2009 The perception people hold about themselves is very important not only in the psychological aspect of their lives but also to how they will make their lives in thee future. These perceptions are either embedded or acquired externally or internally. How the persons acquire these perceptions externally can come from various social interactions where they get an opportunity to see how people generally behave towards them. Internal manner of acquiring these perceptions generally involved the thought processes that individuals go through to assess how they are perceived by their social environment which in turn creates how they perceived themselves (Festinger & Carlsmith 1959). The way a person sees himself in the social context can be broadly categorized into two things – superior or inferior. The things that people do in the future and their future decisions in all aspects of their lives will depend largely on which perception they hold about their own image. These perceptions will also dictate how certain individuals behave and act in social contexts as it determines whether individuals will withdraw or individuals will exhibit aggression in the society. This concept of superiority/inferiority is put forward by Alfred Adler to account for behaviors that are difficult to explain using Freudian’s methods (Diamond 1996). Such behaviors such as aggression, anxiousness, anger, madness, and social withdrawal are discussed thoroughly in many of Adler’s works which gives a better understanding of certain social behaviors. This paper will look into how Adler’s theories and principles on individual psychology can be used to explain the behavior of Corey Delaney and the recent incident that occurred in his parent’s home in Australia, that made him instantly famous and notorious online. In order to do this, this paper will evaluate all the relevant psychological concepts proposed by Adler, synthesize them, and relate these concepts to the case of Corey Delaney. To provide a point of comparison, this paper will also draw discussions from other schools of thought in order to assess the significance of the analysis using Alfred Adler’s works. One of the most recent anti-social behaviors that occurred is the aggressive behavior that drove 16 year old Australian Corey Delaney and the rest of his 500 guests to behave destructively and aggressively during a house party while Delaney’s parents were away (Times 2008). The behavior of Delaney and his uncontrollable guests during the party sounds like a sub-plot in a low-budget teenage film but the horrors experienced by Delaney’s neighbors while Delaney and his crowd are partying is as real as it could get. Reports said that Delaney posted his invitation for a weekend party while his parents were away in an online social networking website as well as through text messages (Hoare 2008). Five hundred people came to attend his invitation, some are his friends but most of these people were strangers. What is worse is that the people that went to the party are under the influence of alcohol and started to make disturbing volume of noise making his neighbors call for police. The responding policemen were driven off, violently, by the rowdy crowd by throwing bottles and bricks to the police cars (BBC 2008; McKeehan & Connolly 2008). Although Delaney’s neighborhood expressed strong disapproval towards his behavior, the young man was quoted to be very pleased of what happened during the party. Delaney’s shattering news item polarized the general Australian view towards the incident even months after the incident occurred. Why would a teenager cause so much trouble by disturbing public peace and order by throwing a public party composed of friends and strangers? One of the many possible explanations of this behavior exhibited by Delaney is the person’s search for self assurance and self worth. This view on self-worth and self-assurance is somehow influenced by how a person perceives himself. Adler’s Individual Psychology can explain this behavior to some extent. As a social animal, man needs to commune with other members of his society in order to survive the harsh times which is particularly true during the primitive periods. Man grouped with other humans in order to hunt for food or grow grains to survive. Individuality is not an option particularly if communal action leads to better results. As man evolved and as his way of thinking changed over the period of time, his social needs became more complex as well. In the recent years, the needs of man to integrate with the rest of the society extend more than its desire to literally survive. The society becomes an integral part of man’s existence and his social interactions help define who he is and what he is capable of. As man grows and develop, the views he held about the world and his perception towards the world work together with the social interactions he has experienced in order to mold him into someone that he will become. His social interaction becomes his way of life and is driven by his social interests. However, man’s individual differences make his interaction with the rest of the society unique (Sclesnich 1966). These social interactions will then help him mould himself into an individual with an inferiority or superiority on certain aspects of his life as he sees it in other people. According to Adler, a healthy individual would do everything in his might to overcome his inferiority through healthy social interactions. As a healthy individual, man seeks for social approval and needs this approval in order for him to manage the issues surrounding him and to contribute to the overall betterment of his society. For Adler, the feeling of inferiority will eventually lead man to increase his dependence towards social and non-social factors. If left unchecked, this feeling of inferiority will eventually lead to the suppression and inhibition of aggressive behaviors which will eventually take into other forms like anxiety, violence, envy, avarice, defiance, and superiority to some extent (Diamond 1996). The display of superiority is often a consequence for the desire to downplay the feeling of inferiority (Mosak 1955). Looking at Delaney’s perspective, it is most likely that the teenager did not experience or lacked the experience of affirmation from the people around him. The absence of affirmation in his life may have caused him great loneliness as he grew up, making him jealous of the people around him who are confident and are well-known in the society. It is also possible that he has experienced social rejection because of the way he carry himself. One example of this social rejection could be that he is ridiculed in school for his sense of fashion. Because of these bouts of insecurity from the social interaction he has had during his daily life, he changed into someone else when there is no authority checking his behavior. Delaney was able to achieve this using the internet where he can portray any identity he wants. When the opportunity came, Delaney made good use of the timing to exercise his need for affirmation. It is possible that Delaney’s social interactions are not as healthy as one could imagine given his fame in the internet and other social networking sites. It is also possible that he has experienced massive social inferiorities which make him angry, agitated, and revolting. The unhealthy social interactions of Delaney constitute the external factors that shaped his current personality and behavior. Delaney’s negative experience from his society led him to believe that he is inferior compared to everybody else. By realizing this, or by feeling this way, he may have developed a strong drive to overcome his insecurity by making the people acknowledge him as a person. Because his resolute thinking is channeled in the wrong manner, he now faces the scrutiny of the Australian public and is considered as the most notorious teenager in Australia. Adler’s philosophical foundation of his psychological thought rests in his general belief that man’s personality is (a) ruled by feelings of inferiority, (b) motivated by his desire to become superior, and (c) is determined by lifestyle and social interests. Feelings of inferiority pushes man to do things that would make him less inferior towards the people around him (Sclesnich 1966). This principle argues that everything that man does is governed by his feeling of inferiority and that man could not escape from this fact (Mosak 1955). This explains why men and women wanted to wear the best clothes (to hide their bodily flaws), wear the most expensive perfumes and jewelries (so that they would look better compared to their neighbors), eat in fancy restaurants (since they would not want to be associated with people from a lesser social status), desire bigger and better positions at work, and work for more money than what they really need. This principle held that every reason man can muster to justify why he do things for himself and for other people boils down into lowering his insecurity. Consequently, this move to rearrange his life to make him not look inferior from the eyes of the society places him in the position where he becomes relatively superior to other people. As he needs to overcome his inferiority, man is motivated to become superior. So superiority and inferiority are two aspects of the same issue. When one is actively operating, it desires to cover up the lack in other areas. So there is a high probability that people that act tough are the ones which has the most insecurity inside them. This can also explain in part Corey Delaney’s course of action that promotes his notoriety. Delaney’s physical feature as it appears on video and pictures suggests that he is very confident about himself by wearing non-conventional fashion statements. He shows his piercing on his nipples by wearing an upper garment that deliberately shows his chests. He also wears oversized yellow eyeglasses which becomes analogous to the rebellious personality he exudes. This air of confidence and superiority could be a cover up for a deeper inferiority he feels inside him. There are no published facts about his life but it is most likely that he is a lonely person, often ridiculed by friends in school, because of how he carries himself. As per Adler’s theory, this feeling of insecurity and inferiority need to be replaced by a more secure and more superior emotions which is affirmation. In order to gain this affirmation, Delaney made the attempt to throw the party and invite people he did not personally know. By throwing a successful party right in his parents’ house, Delaney can assure himself that he possess some degrees of control in his life – something that his parents possibly has not given him. Adler proposed four basic lifestyles that man seeks to attain. According to him, people who are well-adjusted to the society, particularly those who do not desire to reach personal superiority and solve their problems through methods that are beneficial to him and to other people belong to the first group. This first group is comprised of healthy individuals that do not need to feel superior in order to overcome their inferiority. The second group comprise of individuals whose motivation to become superior compared to others is exhibited by his desire to rule others. The people that belong to this group express themselves in manners that involve negative behaviors towards other members of the society. The third group is the extreme opposite of the second group as these are the people that avoid conflicts in any decisions that they make whenever they can. The fourth group is the extreme mixture of the second group and the third group (and is an extreme opposite of the first group) as the people who belong in this group desires to obtain everything he wants from others without expecting any struggle or they sort things out on their own (Festinger & Carlsmith 1959; Sclesnich 1966). Adler’s definition of these lifestyles depends largely on how he defined the interplay of the superiority/inferiority complex that his individual person possesses. Adler’s four categories can also help shed some light on the Delaney issue. Currently, Delaney is avoiding the police authorities and refrained from making any forms of communication with his parents. This behavior is consistent with Adler’s fourth group of individuals in the society as Delaney wants to achieve things without any form of resistance (coming from authorities and his parents) as well as he has exhibited absolute non-compliance to the demands of his parents and the conservative members of the society. It is possible that Delaney’s personality and behavior evolved from a moderate group three especially in front of his parents and other authorities into a moderate group two behavior especially when his parents are not around to supervise his actions. The ruckus during the house party has encouraged him to totally deviate from the Adler’s healthy individual category as he began planning for more complex antisocial behaviors that will surely, and expectedly, revolt some members of the Australian community. Adler held on to the belief that every people can be categorized in the four different lifestyles they live and that people should strive to be a part of the first group in order for them to contribute positively to the society they live in. However, individual differences and the unique social interactions of individuals bar most of them from achieving what they truly want (Festinger & Carlsmith 1959). This is exhibited by the different characteristics of people that involve wanting to dominate, the expression of an outright refusal to cooperate, or wanting to take but not giving something back in return. These responses help determine the inferiority or the superiority complex of a person. But since man’s superiority complex is just a cover up for his inferiority complex, the need to change man into a healthy individual that neither feels inferior nor has the desire to become superior starts with changing how he perceives himself (Sclesnich 1966). Adler believes that a new way of looking at things and a by operating through a new set of goals, man will be able to correct his views and realign his focus to achieve the status of a healthy individual. The attempt to correct the views about themselves and about other people held by individuals all their life would take much effort to successfully implement but this is not impossible. It would just take a courageous heart in order to implement a total change in perspective and realign this perspective into a more productive goal in life rather than becoming more destructive and defiant. In the case of Corey Delaney, even if he claims that he is happy and superior because of the fame he is now experiencing, it is most likely that he spends his night lonely and empty because he gained the fame and notoriety at the same time losing his parents and the respect of those people who have known him even before he became famous. His defiance does not necessarily mean though that he will stay as a hard-headed young man who almost started a riot. Delaney is just a lonely person and he needs to be seen in the way he can be seen. With proper psychological intervention, particularly using the Adlerian approach to psychological treatment, Delaney gets a good chance to turn around and become a normal and productive member of the society. Corey Delaney’s anti-social behavior can be explained by other psychological theories like those of Mastersons and Freud but these theories would meet serious difficulties in trying to ascribe the concepts of the theory to the known facts of the Delaney case. For example, how would Freudian psychosexual process relate to Delaney’s antisocial behavior? The case of Delaney establishes the importance of keeping Adler’s view towards individual psychology, no matter how trite his views have become over the years. Sure there are better psychological theories that could provide detailed explanation of Delaney’s behavior but not one of them could point out the obvious as elegantly as Alfred Alder’s views could. Reference BBC. (2008). Australian Party Teen turn Pro. BBC News Asia-Pacific. Accessed on June 9, 2009 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7206686.stm Diamond, Stephen. (1996). Anger, Madness, and Daimonic: The Psychological Genesis of Violence, Evil, and Creativity. State University of New York Press. Hoare, Daniel. (2008). Police not Amused After Huge, Rowdy Teen Party. ABC News. Accessed on June 9, 2009 from http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/14/2138293.htm Leon Festinger & James M. Carlsmith[1] (1959). Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58, 203-210 McKeehan, B. & Connolly, F. (January 17, 2008). Nude Twister at Corey Delaney’s Party. The Daily Telegraph. Accessed on June 9, 2009 from http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23066168-5001021,00.html Mosak, H. (1955). Alfred Adler: His Influence on Psychology Today, Park Ridge, NJ, Noyer Press. 1973 Munroe, Ruth; Schools of Psychoanalytical Thought, New York, Dryden Press, Sclesnich, Sheldon. (1966).; Psychoanalytic Pioneers, (Editors-Alexander, Eisenstein, & Groth), New York, Basic Books. Times Online. (January 2008). Aussie Party Boy Corey Delaney Finds Stardom Online. World News. Accessed on June 9, 2009 from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article3198418.ece Read More

The responding policemen were driven off, violently, by the rowdy crowd by throwing bottles and bricks to the police cars (BBC 2008; McKeehan & Connolly 2008). Although Delaney’s neighborhood expressed strong disapproval towards his behavior, the young man was quoted to be very pleased of what happened during the party. Delaney’s shattering news item polarized the general Australian view towards the incident even months after the incident occurred. Why would a teenager cause so much trouble by disturbing public peace and order by throwing a public party composed of friends and strangers?

One of the many possible explanations of this behavior exhibited by Delaney is the person’s search for self assurance and self worth. This view on self-worth and self-assurance is somehow influenced by how a person perceives himself. Adler’s Individual Psychology can explain this behavior to some extent. As a social animal, man needs to commune with other members of his society in order to survive the harsh times which is particularly true during the primitive periods. Man grouped with other humans in order to hunt for food or grow grains to survive.

Individuality is not an option particularly if communal action leads to better results. As man evolved and as his way of thinking changed over the period of time, his social needs became more complex as well. In the recent years, the needs of man to integrate with the rest of the society extend more than its desire to literally survive. The society becomes an integral part of man’s existence and his social interactions help define who he is and what he is capable of. As man grows and develop, the views he held about the world and his perception towards the world work together with the social interactions he has experienced in order to mold him into someone that he will become.

His social interaction becomes his way of life and is driven by his social interests. However, man’s individual differences make his interaction with the rest of the society unique (Sclesnich 1966). These social interactions will then help him mould himself into an individual with an inferiority or superiority on certain aspects of his life as he sees it in other people. According to Adler, a healthy individual would do everything in his might to overcome his inferiority through healthy social interactions.

As a healthy individual, man seeks for social approval and needs this approval in order for him to manage the issues surrounding him and to contribute to the overall betterment of his society. For Adler, the feeling of inferiority will eventually lead man to increase his dependence towards social and non-social factors. If left unchecked, this feeling of inferiority will eventually lead to the suppression and inhibition of aggressive behaviors which will eventually take into other forms like anxiety, violence, envy, avarice, defiance, and superiority to some extent (Diamond 1996).

The display of superiority is often a consequence for the desire to downplay the feeling of inferiority (Mosak 1955). Looking at Delaney’s perspective, it is most likely that the teenager did not experience or lacked the experience of affirmation from the people around him. The absence of affirmation in his life may have caused him great loneliness as he grew up, making him jealous of the people around him who are confident and are well-known in the society. It is also possible that he has experienced social rejection because of the way he carry himself.

One example of this social rejection could be that he is ridiculed in school for his sense of fashion. Because of these bouts of insecurity from the social interaction he has had during his daily life, he changed into someone else when there is no authority checking his behavior. Delaney was able to achieve this using the internet where he can portray any identity he wants. When the opportunity came, Delaney made good use of the timing to exercise his need for affirmation. It is possible that Delaney’s social interactions are not as healthy as one could imagine given his fame in the internet and other social networking sites.

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