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The Courage to Be Disliked
A review of

The Courage to Be Disliked

The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness


Approachable Adler

by David Meyer

Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, who are followers of Adlerian psychology and best-selling authors, present Adler’s principles in the form of an accessible fable.

Ichiro Kishimi is a certified counselor and consultant for the Japanese Society of Adlerian psychology. Fumitake Koga, his co-author and also a devotee of Adlerian psychology, is a best-selling author. Here, they discuss psychologist Alfred Adler – a contemporary of Freud and Jung – through a dialogue between a young man and an older philosopher. This meaningful work has sold more than 3.5 million copies in Asia.

Western readers are likely to regard it as a Socratic exchange. Eastern readers, and those familiar with Eastern thought, will recognize it as a classic Confucian conversation in which an elder person schools a younger person in the correct ways of being or thinking without ever stating directly what behavior this requires. The youth must, to a degree, figure things out for himself or herself.