Your comments and questions may be posted on the Classical Adlerian Psychology Discussion Forum. All of this material is protected by copyright and may not be reproduced without the expressed consent of Dr. Stein . Encouragement can increase the tolerance for failures and prevent the outbreak of neurosis, ameliorate it, or defer it. Essentially, Individual Psychology is a method of limitless encouragement. All symptoms of neuroses and psychoses are forms of expression of discouragement.
Every improvement comes about solely from encouraging the sufferer.
Every physician and every school of neurology is effective only to the extent that they succeed in giving encouragement. Occasionally, a layman can succeed in this also. It is practiced deliberately only by Individual Psychology. He must be encouraged to develop a different way of seeing inferiorities. Conversely, it is true that a child that can be encouraged in one area, may be able to expand this to others.