Talk to The Courage to Be Disliked like its author wrote you back.
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What it argues
The Courage to Be Disliked presents Alfred Adler's philosophy of individual psychology through a Socratic dialogue between a young man and a philosopher. The format is deliberate: the young man arrives full of objections — that trauma shapes us, that the world is cruel, that change is impossible — and the philosopher dismantles each one carefully. The book's central claim is that we are not determined by our past. We are determined by what we are trying to achieve in the present, even when we're unaware of it.
The Adlerian framework here differs sharply from Freudian thinking. Where Freud explains the present by excavating the past, Adler asks what purpose our current behavior is serving. Feeling anxious about leaving the house isn't caused by a past trauma; it serves the goal of avoiding failure. This "teleological" view of human behavior puts agency back in the individual's hands. If you chose the anxiety (even unconsciously), you can choose differently.
What it gets right
- 1.
Adlerian psychology is teleological, not causal: behavior is explained by the goals it serves, not by past trauma. We are not prisoners of our history.
- 2.
Separation of tasks: distinguish what is your responsibility from what belongs to others. Whether someone approves of you is their task, not yours.
- 3.
The desire for recognition is a trap. Constantly seeking approval means living someone else's life rather than your own.
What it covers
Who wrote it
Ichiro Kishimi is a Japanese philosopher and Adlerian psychologist who has spent decades translating and promoting Alfred Adler's work in Japan, where Adler was largely unknown before his involvement. Fumitake Koga is a Japanese writer who sought out Kishimi after reading his work and spent years in dialogue with him before co-authoring this book and its sequel, The Courage to Be Happy. The Courage to Be Disliked became a publishing phenomenon in Japan and South Korea before finding a global audience, selling millions of copies and introducing a generation of readers to Adlerian ideas.
