NCJ Number
75183
Date Published
1977
Length
20 pages
Annotation
The author's perceptions of typical lifestyles in a male juvenile correctional facility and a 4-year women's college are discussed from an Adlerian perspective.
Abstract
Alfred Adler maintained that individuals have a holistic approach to life that involves a consistent pattern of surviving and attempting to find self-fulfillment in the midst of life's varying circumstances. Based on this Adlerian perspective, typical patterns of initiating and response behavior and attitudes among juvenile males in a correctional facility and students in a women's college are identified. Both the incarcerated male juveniles and the college females typically presented 'pampered' lifestyles, the males through aggressive manipulative behavior and the females through passive dependent manipulative behavior. According to Mozak, the 'pampered' lifestyle is typified by exploitation and manipulation of life and of others. Adler's description of juvenile delinquents was found to hold true. Delinquents pictured the world as a place where everyone else exists for their exploitation, where they have the right to set their own interest above the interest of others. The female students, although voicing support for the feminist view of female independence and equality with males, manifested behavior and attitudes of passive-dependent exploitation of men, who tended to be viewed by the women as sources of physical and emotional protection and security. Findings are based on counseling case histories, samples of which are presented. Counseling was found to be instrumental in changing lifestyle patterns through insight and reinforcement of new behavioral techniques. Implications of the findings for the treatment of incarcerated males and the current women's rights movement are discussed. A bibliography listing 19 references is provided.