Life style assessment: a demonstration focused on family constellation.

The phrase, life style, is currently used in many ways which Adler never intended. As Adler used it, life style refers to the "unity in each individual-in his thinking, feeling, acting; in his so-called conscious and unconscious, in every expression of his personality. This unity we call the style of life of the individual" (3, p. 175). While we agree with this definition of life style, we prefer one somewhat more limited, namely, a person's central convictions which, to oversimplify, describe how he views himself in relation to his view of life. We formally assess a life style by interviewing the person regard­ ing his family constellation and his early recollections, as Adler had emphasized the importance of birth order position and early recollec­ tions (3, p. 328). The family constellation part was described first by Dreikurs (4) and then by Shulman (7); the early recollections part has been described by this author (5). In an actual case we give equal importance to the two parts. In the present demonstration early recollections are merely touched upon during the last few minutes, while the emphasis is on the investigation of the family constellation. Dreikurs outlines the significance of this procedure in the following: