Location 215:

If we focus only on past causes and try to explain things solely through cause and effect, we end up with “determinism.” Because what this says is that our present and our future have already been decided by past occurrences, and are unalterable.

Location 223:

in Adlerian psychology, we do not think about past “causes” but rather about present “goals.”

Location 227:

Think about it this way. Your friend had the goal of not going out beforehand, and he’s been manufacturing a state of anxiety and fear as a means to achieve that goal. In Adlerian psychology, this is called “teleology.”

Location 234:

This is the difference between etiology (the study of causation) and teleology (the study of the purpose of a given phenomenon, rather than its cause).

Location 235:

As long as we stay in etiology, we will not take a single step forward.

Location 250:

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 his or her present unhappiness. When you treat a person’s life as a vast narrative, there is 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 do not suffer from the shock of our experiences—the so-called trauma—but instead we make out of them whatever suits our purposes. We are not determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining.”

Location 257:

Focus on the point Adler is making here when he refers to the self being determined not by our experiences themselves, but by the meaning we give them. He is not saying that the experience of a horrible calamity or abuse during childhood or other such incidents have no influence on forming a personality; their influences are strong. But the important thing is that nothing is actually determined by those influences. We determine our own lives according to the meaning we give to those past experiences.

Location 260:

Your life is not something that someone gives you, but something you choose yourself, and you are the one who decides how you live.

Location 340:

Regardless of what may have happened in the past, it is the meaning that is attributed to it that determines the way someone’s present will be.

Location 343:

We can’t turn back the hands of time. If you end up staying in etiology, you will be bound by the past and never be able to find happiness.

Location 346:

If the past determined everything and couldn’t be changed, we who are living today would no longer be able to take effective steps forward in our lives. What would happen as a result? We would end up with the kind of nihilism and pessimism that loses hope in the world and gives up on life.

Location 348:

The Freudian etiology that is typified by the trauma argument is determinism in a different form, and it is the road to nihilism. Are you going to accept values like that?

Location 357:

“People are not driven by past causes but move toward goals that they themselves set”—that was the philosopher’s claim.

Location 372:

You should arrive at answers on your own, not rely upon what you get from someone else. Answers from others are nothing more than stopgap measures; they’re of no value.

Location 458:

In Adlerian psychology, we describe personality and disposition with the word “lifestyle.”

Location 460:

Lifestyle is the tendencies of thought and action in life.

Location 462:

How one sees the world. And how one sees oneself. Think of lifestyle as a concept bringing together these ways of finding meaning. In a narrow sense, lifestyle could be defined as someone’s personality; taken more broadly, it is a word that encompasses the worldview of that person and his or her outlook on life.

Location 467:

It seems that the word “personality” is nuanced and suggests being unchangeable. But if we’re talking about a view of the world, well, then, that should be possible to alter.

Location 479:

Of course, you did not consciously choose “this kind of self.” Your first choice was probably unconscious, combined with external factors you have referred to—that is, race, nationality, culture, and home environment. These certainly had a significant influence on that choice. Nevertheless, it is you who chose “this kind of self.”

Location 487:

If your lifestyle is not something that you were naturally born with, but something you chose yourself, then it must be possible to choose it over again.

Location 490:

Of course, no one can choose his or her own birth. Being born in this country, in this era, and with these parents are things you did not choose. And all these things have a great deal of influence. You’ll probably face disappointment and start looking at other people and feeling, I wish I’d been born in their circumstances. But you can’t let it end there. The issue is not the past, but here, in the present. And now you’ve learned about lifestyle. But what you do with it from here on is your responsibility. Whether you go on choosing the lifestyle you’ve had up till now, or you choose a new lifestyle altogether, it’s entirely up to you.

Location 515:

Adlerian psychology is a psychology of courage. Your unhappiness cannot be blamed on your past or your environment. And it isn’t that you lack competence. You just lack courage.

Location 558:

“No matter what has occurred in your life up to this point, it should have no bearing at all on how you live from now on.”

Location 684:

All problems are interpersonal relationship problems. This