アドレリアン第 22 巻第３号(通巻第 59 号) 2009 年６月

Using The Number One Priorityand Sensory Type to Understand Life Stylein the Group Workshop
Hironori Nakajima M.Ed. (Okayama University of Science),
Tadashi Tanaka M.D. (Tadashi Mental Clinic),
Masako Hagi (Sakai-City Education Center),
Keiko Okada (Hattori Mental Clinic),
and Shunsaku Noda M.D. (Adler Guild): Japan
要旨
キーワード：

Adlerian psychology stresses the uniqueness of the individual. We must understand that each individual’s particular life style. Using typology is very useful that we can use this tool as a “bridge”(Pew, 1976) or “door knob” to understand each individual’s life style in the group setting. Adler believed that typologies were helpful in understanding each individuals.
The purpose of this presentation is to indicate the point of which we devised into segments tobetter understand different life style.
Using typologies in the group
Adler made typologies based on its activity and social interest in which are; ruling type, getting
type, avoiding type and useful type. Mosak (1977) made getter, driver controller, and the one whowants to be right and so on.
We find that by using sensory type with number one priority in group workshop helps to understand how others see, hear, and feel about themselves and the world itself.
Also, we believe that by using these theories simultaneously and letting the members to describe
his/her own life style as well as other members’ life style by nick-name is very effective way tounderstand the life style.
The number one priority
As all of us may know well these theories, however, let us go through a brief explanation.
Pew (1976) wrote; “The number one priority is a set of convictions that a person gives precedence to;it is a value established by order of importance or urgency that takes precedence over－1－other values.”
Dewey (1978) wrote;“The number one priority is one aspect of life style.”and they are answers to
the questions, “What is most important in my quest for belonging? and what must I most urgently
avoid?”
The four priorities are divided into these categories: Comfort, Pleasing, Control, and Superiority.
Now that we use new categorization by taking into account the variables of Problem Solution vs.
Human Relation Maintenance, Passive Movement vs. Active Movement.
The articles related to number one priority (1)Following are showing how the Number One Priority is implemented in the field of therapy andresearch.
(1) Appling number one priorities to understand family dynamics, the pattern of transactions, andtheir purpose. (Dinkmeyer & Carlson, 1983）(2) Using priorities for financial counseling.

(Poduska, B., 1985)(3) Using priorities in Training in Marriage Enrichment (TIME). ( Dinkmeyer & Carlson, 1985)(4) Investigated the role personality priorities play in forming a marriage. (Evans T., & BozarthJ., 1986)(5) Using priorities as indicators of marital adjustment. (Main & Oliver, 1988)(6) To explore the relationship between personality priorities and wellness orientation. (Britzman &Main, 1990, 1992)(7) Research on personality priority pairings in marriage and marriage counseling. (Holden, J.,1991)(8) Using personality priorities as avenues for understanding couples. (Bitter J., 1993)(9) Research on relationships between personality priorities and affect, depression, self-efficacy, andfear of intimacy. (Kottman T. and Ashby J., 2000)(10) Using personality priorities in marriage education. (Dinkmeyer D., 2007)
We found the sources from The Journal of Individual Psychology. This theory is effective especially for marriage, couples and group counseling.
Example to understand priority
This is about one fictive example to better understand what is “Priority”. We inquired to several
certified Adlerian Psychotherapists. All of them said it was difficult to say if not asking more ofMr.A’s feeling. Although, all of them said that he may be a pleasing type.
“At the conference, Mr.A did a presentation of a project to his colleagues. Then, Mr.B said toMr.A, “The project must reconsider based on my plan.” Mr. A was upset about his comments.After the conference, Mr. C told Mr. A that “You don’t need to reconsider your plan. Because you
know the project more than Mr.B.” Mr.A was confused. Mr.A, then, asked his friend, Mr.D
“What I should do?” Mr.D told him “Just do what you want to do.” So Mr. A changed his plan－2－Tries to:Assets:Reaction of others:

ComfortSeek his comfort

Easy-going, few
demands, and peacemakerFeel peace orAnnoyancePleasing

To please others

Friendly, considerate,and Non-aggressive

Feel pleased orExasperation

Control

Control oneself orcontrol others

Leadership potential,organized, andproductive

Reliable orFeel challenged

Superiority

Want to be better
than others

Knowledgeable,
precise, and idealistic

Respect or feelings ofinferiority

Price that one pays:

Tries to avoid:

Feelings they often
experience:

ComfortReduced productivity

StressTiresome

Pleasing

Reduction inorientation

Rejection

Anxiety

ControlSocial distance

The unexpected

AngerSuperiority

Feel over-responsible

Meaninglessness in life

Depression

as Mr. B told him at the conference. Still, Mr. A was concerned about how Mr. C would feel hisdecision.”
Following figures are showing the characteristics of number one priorities. We modified Dewey’schart.
Categorization of Number one Priority (1) (Noda, 1994)
This figure is showing Noda’s categorization taking into account the variables of Problem solution
vs. Human relation maintenance, Passive movement vs. Active movement.

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We use this categorization because members of the group can image the difference of each priority.
For example, in Japan people often think that their priority is Superiority because they work very
hard. We ask why you want to work hard.If the member said “I want to be more knowledgeable.”then his/her priority may be superiority. But if he/she said “I want to meet other’s expectation.”then his/her priority may be a pleasing type.
Categorization of Number one Priority (2) (Yamamoto, 2008)
This figure is useful for members of the group to understand that we must think contributive sideof the priority.
The sensory type theory
The Sensory Type Theory states that we have dominant sensory type when we recognize the environmental events. Adler himself didn’t systematize the Sensory Types typology. Although he often used these types in his case studies.
There are three sensory types; Auditory type - especially sensitive to story and listening. Visualtype- especially sensitive to image and perspective. Sensory-motor type - especially sensitive tokinesthetic sense and emotion.
Comparing the Number One Priority and the Sensory Type theory, we find fewer articles aboutsensory type theory. The NLP stresses the effectiveness of the Sensory type. We researched Adler’s articles on sensory type.
(1) From “Understanding Life”“It is convenient for certain purpose to classify individuals in to types. … For instance, let us
take the case of person who remembers that she saw a marvelous Christmas tree, filled with lights,presents, and baubles. What is the most interesting thing in this story? The fact that she saw thesethings. … she is always interested in visual things. (p60-61)”“In school, the education of children often disregards this principle of types. We may find chil－4－

dren interested in visual things who will not listen to the teacher because they always want to belooking at same thing. (p61)”(2) From “Understanding Human Nature”“Of all the tools with which a child attempts to conquer the world, the sense organs play themost important part in determining the essential relationships with the world in which child lives.
(p38)”“A child perceives only elements in her environment that fit into a behavior pattern. … The perceptions of children whose visual sense is especially well developed have a predominantly visualcharacter. (p40)”(3) From “What Life Could Mean to You”
“If a teacher is to attract the interest of a child, he must discover what the child’s interests havepreviously been and convince her that she can make success of these interests and of others. …
From the first, therefore, we should find out how the child looks at the world and which senseorgan has been used most and trained to the highest degree. Some children are most interested inseeing, some in listening, some in moving. (p139)”“If in a child’s first memories we see an interest in visual things, … he will be more suited to anoccupation in which he can use his eyes. A child might mention impressions of someone talking
to him, of the sound of the wind or of a bell ringing … he is an acoustic type and we can guessthat he might be suited for some profession connected with music. In other recollections we cansee impressions of movement. These are individuals who need more activity. (p204)”(4) From “The Education of Children”“What we have said about subjects of interest applies also to the sense organs of children. We
must find out which sense organ is the most used and what type of sensations fascinate the childmost. There are many children who are better trained in seeing and looking, others in listening,
still others in moving, etc. (p185)”
Summarization of the characteristics of the sensory type
From Adler’s article and our clinical experiences, we have summarized the characteristics of the sensory type.
Using typologies in the group
We have studied that knowing sensory type is very effective method to understand how otherpeople recognize themselves and the world itself, it is just like put one’s feet into other people’sshoes.
For example, Visual type person often uses visually perceivable information to understand others.
－5－Auditory type

Visual type

Sensory-motor type

Sensitive to story andlistening

Sensitive to image andperspective

Sensitive to kinesthetic sense
and feeling

Audience

Observer

Actor

Grasps by sound and/orwords

Grasps by form, a color andan image

Grasps with an atmosphereand air

Logical and rational
understanding and context
is importantCertain scene andis important

A feeling and a sense isimportant

Explains time progress andflow

Explains placement

Explains the atmosphereTells it as a story

Tells one scene

Tells a general atmosphereSensitive to the tone of thevoice

Cares much on facial
expression

Sensitive to physical sense

pattern

Here is an example; visual type person thinks it’s OK if other people are smiling even in a fact
they are actually tired. It could use as a trigger to increase his/her ability to fully perceive the reality by using all of the other senses. So we devised to implement sensory type with the Number
One Priority at group workshop to be able to examine from a distanced point of view what’s others priority in his/her position.
Disadvantages
There are some disadvantages of these typologies.
(1) Members often forget the uniqueness of each individual’s life style. And they tend to generalize the individual life style excessively.
(2) Members often emphasize too much value on each type. For instance, Superiority type is better than Pleasing type, others believe that Auditory type is more mature than Visual type.
(3) Members often believe that each type uses an individual rather than an individual uses eachtype. This leads to the wrong statement such as “I am a comfort type that’s why I don’t
want to work hard.” or “You are a control type that is why you always command me to whatto do.”(4) Members often want to belong to the type too much.
(5) Members often forget the useful side of their life style, etc.
We think that these disadvantages increase Aggressiveness.
Is there any method that enables to understand the uniqueness of each member’s life style by thesetypologies?
As we explained on the previous, if we put too much emphasize on selecting and dividing eachtypes, we tend to lose our principal and the most important purpose of this classification which is;“to better understand each unique individual”.
What do we need to do if we want the members of the group to discover that even the same－6－

type of the members are very different in many ways after each member of the group finds out
his/her type? What we should do after each member of the group finds out his/her type?
We think that we need the members of the group to discover that even the members belongs thesame type are actually very different in many ways.
What we should do after each member of the group finds out his/her type?
We find it is very effective to listen and get to know the members’ episode to understand theirlife style, referring to the others’ type. Also, if the members find out his/her and other members’
personal strength and contribution from their episode, the members can understand his/her and othermembers’ life style in more positive and contributive way.
If the group member puts the most suitable “nickname” to oneself and/or to other members, itwill help them to understand his/her or other members’ life style in more positive and contributiveway. These steps will increase Tenderness.
The Flow of the Workshop (1)(1) To learn The Number One Priority and Sensory Type.
(2) To find each member’s type.
(3) To discuss with same type members how they think, feel and act in the certain situation.
(4) To discuss with different type members.
(5) To search each individual’s strength of each type in their episode.
(6) To find the most suitable terms or sentence in order to describe each member’s life style.

Case study #1
Lately, I was assigned to write the essay and the short report at school. It was very troublesome
for me. Because I had to write 800 words for the essay and that I needed at least 1300 words forthe short report. I eventually finished writing the essay and the report and counted the words by－7－

using Micro Soft’s WORD software.
What I did for the report and short essay was that I wrote down as much words as it came out
from my mind onto each cards and I shuffled them and put them together to try to make a wholesentence.
Priority: Comfort type.
Sensory type: Visual type.
Nickname: Koala.
By giving a nick name on him, we recognize that he is a person who strives to achieve his goalwith minimum power. Also, he is a person who makes other people happy and comfortable. He is akind of person who will see things visually at first and then he tries to composite in order toperceive the matters around him. In this way, the goal for being comfortable is described moreclearly and uniquely.
Case study #2
I bought some cookies as a souvenir for my colleagues at workplace. I went to Hokkaido for atrip. I bought some cookies from Hokkaido as a souvenir and handed it my colleagues. They
thanked me so politely and it gave me a warm feeling.
At the same time, I also felt that maybe I made them feel an unnecessarily care due to the factthat I gave them a souvenirs. I felt sorry about that.
Priority: Superiority type.
Sensory type: Sensory-motor type.
Nickname: Snow crystals.
In this case, we can classify this person as Comfort Type or Superiority Type, without a nick
name, we would be just concluding by only discussing what type she would be. However, with anick name enables the member of the group to find his or her unique goals and senses. She, together with other’s help, decided to nickname herself as a“Snow Flake”That she always wanted
to be a person to make other people happy, heartfelt and comfortable. Just as a snow flake transforms its shapes and anyone who sees would feel such happiness. She is happy if someone else ishappy, but still, she wishes to remain as a humble person and just wants to be as “Unsung Hero”
and not being too showy. So the “Snow Flake” is a perfect metaphor to describe her characteristics.
Conclusion
When we describe one’s life style to distinguish by nickname, it would be more acceptable andwithout any resistance. It can be very pleasant and amusing to get to know the life style of others. This method is very effective to categorize into segments in order to understand other groupmembers.
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References（１） Pew, W. L., The Number One Priority, Monograph: International Association of IndividualPsychology, Munich, Germany, 1976
（２） Mosak, H., On Purpose: Collected Papers, p183-185, 1977
（３） Dewey, E. A., Basic Applications of Adlerian Psychology, p22, 1978
（４） Noda, S., Monograph: Basic Adlerian Course, Osaka, Japan, 1994

編集部注
この論文は 2008 年リトアニアで開かれた第 24 回国際アドラー心理学会での発表原稿です。

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