Two Early Recollection Cases: A Special Study of Clinicians’ Impressions 63 Years Later

Abstract: In the spring of 1962, Rudolf Dreikurs sent a letter to some of his colleagues with a three-item questionnaire asking them to share how they approach a client’s lifestyle and how they used early recollections in lifestyle assessment. With the questionnaire came two de-identified cases (a brief family constellation information and a set of several early recollections for each) and a request to share lifestyle impressions based on the ER and limited family constellation information. According to the correspondence in the Rudolf Dreikurs’s collection at the US Library of Congress, at least a few responses came back to Dreikurs. It is unknown if—and if so, how—the project concluded. The following seven impressions of the original 1962 cases were shared with us by contemporary Adlerian clinicians, representing a broad and rich range of perspectives on lifestyle assessment and the ER part in such assessment. The collection starts with the cases, followed by written impressions, in alphabetical order by the authors’ names.