The Courage to Be Disliked

Kishimi and Koga present the psychology of Alfred Adler through a dialogue between a philosopher and a young man over five nights. Adler was a contemporary of Freud who broke with him, and the book states his positions in deliberately provocative form.

The central claim is teleology against etiology. Adler holds that people are driven by present goals rather than determined by past causes, so trauma does not determine current behaviour. A person who cannot leave the house is not prevented by past events but produces anxiety in order to achieve the goal of not leaving. This is the most contested position in the book and the authors state it without softening.

The second major claim is separation of tasks. A person must distinguish their own tasks from other people's, and whether someone else likes or approves of you is their task and not yours. Seeking recognition makes a person live according to other people's expectations, which the book treats as the root of unfreedom. Freedom, in this account, means accepting being disliked.

The third is that all problems are interpersonal, and that the healthy response is community feeling, meaning a sense of contribution to others without any expectation of recognition. The authors reject praise and reprimand alike, arguing that both operate through vertical relationships and produce dependence. Adlerian psychology has little empirical support and the denial of trauma effects contradicts substantial clinical evidence. The dialogue format allows objections to be raised and then dismissed rather than tested. The separation of tasks is the most practically useful idea and can be adopted without accepting the rest.