According to Gerald Corey's "Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy," Adlerian counselors "pay more attention to the subjective experience of the client than they do to using techniques." Early in the relationship, Alderian counselors are attentive and listen to their client's concerns. They try to point out their client's strengths and positive attributes rather than focusing on the negative. The Adlerian counselor wants to make the client feel fully understood and accepted. Developing a close and empathetic client-counselor relationship is seen as an essential for a positive experience in therapy.
The second phase of Adlerian counseling consists of interviewing the client. According to Corey, the counselor asks the client "How would your life be different, and what would you do differently, if you did not have this symptom or problem?" Depending on the client's answer, the counselor can begin to focus on the direction of therapy. During the interview phase, the counselor asks the client about his family dynamic. Was the family functional or dysfunctional? How was the client treated? Does he get along with his family members today? The counselor also asks the client about his early recollections. Because there are literally thousands of memories that a client could potentially cite, the counselor gives special significance to the memories the client actually remembers. The counselor also assesses the client's personality priorities: What's most important to the client? Superiority, control, comfort or pleasing? When the interview phase is finished, a summarized version of the findings is presented to the client.
According to Corey, "Self understanding is only possible when hidden purposes and goals of behavior are made conscious." Adlerian counselors encourage clients to become aware of the motivations of their behaviors. Self-disclosure on the counselor's part is believed to help the client with insight and awareness into her own problems or behaviors; however, self-disclosures should be timely and appropriate. At this point, it is considered appropriate for the Adlerian counselor to make interpretations and for the client and counselor to explore these interpretations in depth during the counseling sessions. It is believed that this helps the client understand her motivations and behaviors.
The final phase of Adlerian counseling is reorientation. Reorientation requires a lot of encouragement. This is the phase where insights are put into practice. The client is now aware of his problems and issues: now is the time to make appropriate changes and develop a new life goal. This new life goal should be an improvement over the original life goal because it will guide the client's behavior and actions. According to Corey, Adlerian counselors yearn to make a positive difference in their clients' lives, and they achieve these through techniques such as "immediacy, advice, humor, silence, paradoxical intention, acting as if ... externalization, re-authoring, analysis, task-setting, [and] ... giving homework." The reorientation phase can pull on these techniques to make a difference in the client's life.