Adler

About Us

Built on Adlerian values of mutual respect and collaboration, ADLER continues a 40-year tradition of Adlerian education and training in Ontario.

ADLER is a graduate professional school offering a variety of academic programs which prepare students to provide services in the areas of mental health and wellbeing. Our graduates pursue careers in psychology (clinical and counselling psychology), professional coaching, psychotherapy, and mental health counselling.

Why choose ADLER? Unique amongst private educational institutions, we offer a professional Master of Psychology* degree (with full consent of the Ontario Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development) making ours the only such degree in Ontario. A hands-on, applied approach in all our courses and programs.

ADLER instructors are all practitioners, bringing their professional experience into the classroom, as well as training in the field. Our objective is to ensure students successfully secure employment or assist them in their goal of developing further in the job they have. We have a compact student body, enabling us to develop individualized courses and training.

We provide the option of taking individual graduate courses to retrain, upgrade, or remediate for registration or certification. ADLER programs and courses reflect current professional standards, and our students are informed about the latest changes in legislation or accreditation. We’ve developed weekend and intensive schedules that are ideal for working adults, with a curriculum built on the principles of adult education.

*This program is offered under the written consent of the Ontario Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Development for the period from August 8, 2017, to August 7, 2022. Prospective students are responsible for satisfying themselves that the program and the degree will be appropriate to their needs (e.g., acceptable to potential employers, professional licensing bodies or other educational institutions).

Why ADLER?

• A hands-on, applied approach characterizes all of our courses and programs
• Our instructors are all practitioners, bringing their professional experience into the classroom, as well as training in the field
• Our objective is to ensure students successfully secure employment or to assist them in their goal of developing further in the job they have
• We have a compact student body, enabling us to develop individualized courses and training
• We provide the option of taking individual graduate courses to retrain, upgrade, or remediate for registration or certification
• ADLER programs and courses reflect current professional standards, and our students are informed about the latest changes in legislation or accreditation
• We’ve developed weekend and intensive schedules that are ideal for working adults, with a curriculum built on the principles of adult education
• We offer the only graduate program in Psychology that is tailored for individuals from a non- traditional psychology background

Mission, Values & Goals

ADLER bases its philosophical assumptions, Core Values and Curriculum Guiding Principles on Individual Psychology, a comprehensive science-of-living system originated and developed by the well-known Austrian psychiatrist, Alfred Adler (1870-1937) who promoted basic values of community and social justice.

Our Stylized ‘A’ logo is the Greek sign for Delta, symbolizing positive change. Each side of the triangle represents one of our three focus areas; Psychology and Psychotherapy, Coaching and Leadership, and Continuing Education and Community Service. All three areas of focus have a similar aim: to help people move towards positive change.

Our mission

We practice what we teach in order to transform ourselves, our organization and the world.

Our values

ADLER supports the right of everyone to live free of oppression and deprivation. What we want for ourselves, we want for all.

Our goals

At ADLER we transform teaching into learning, careers into callings, and theory into practice and vice-versa.

Our History

ADLER was formed with the express purpose of offering degrees and other advanced professional education in the mental health and wellbeing professions to students from Ontario and around the world. Adlerian graduate-level professional education has been a presence in Ontario since 1978. When the Ontario government enacted the Post-secondary Education Choice and Excellence Act, 2000, members of the ADLER community recognized the opportunity, for the first time in Ontario, to establish an independent degree-granting graduate professional institution that could meet the professional needs of Ontario students. Although it is an independent organization, ADLER maintains collegial relations with other Adlerian institutions such as Adler Graduate School in Minnesota and Adler University in Chicago and Vancouver.

ADLER bases its philosophical assumptions, Core Values and Curriculum Guiding Principles on Individual Psychology, a comprehensive science-of-living system originated and developed by the well-known Austrian psychiatrist, Alfred Adler (1870-1937) who promoted basic values of community and social justice.

Although ADLER’s educational orientation is rooted in Adlerian philosophy, all major approaches and theories that contribute to mental health and wellbeing are represented in ADLER Curricula. Our experience and professional expertise suggest that a firm grounding in a broad-based theory, such as Adlerian Philosophy, provides a foundation for developing a high level cognitive and emotional capacity for comparing and evaluating other theories.

Individual Psychology, or Adlerian Psychology, emphasizes the uniqueness of every individual and stresses the individual’s social embeddedness. At the core of the School’s approach to mental health and wellbeing, and to training professionals in these fields, is a philosophical assumption about the dynamics of being human that draws on the work of Adler. We are all caught in a paradoxical tension between being ourselves, the centre and creator of our own phenomenological universe, and fulfilling the demands of a social community without which we cannot survive. On the one hand, we are all unique human beings with a strong need and desire to express ourselves fully in our life and work. On the other hand, we are subjected to pushes and pulls off in a web of relationships as a member of multiple systems, and an irretrievable part of humanity. Our creativity in resolving this seeming paradox between self-expression and embeddedness determines, to a significant extent, our level of success and fulfillment and, according to Adler, our mental health. The key to resolving the paradox lies in using our unique selves to make a contribution to and with others. Adler calls this key, ‘social interest’.

Our goal at ADLER is to develop professionals whose work will be thoroughly grounded in the intention to help clients creatively resolve and transcend this paradox between self-expression and embeddedness - that is, to develop social interest. Even when that work is narrowly focused on a specific issue or area, we believe that operating from such a higher-level intention will enhance both healing and possibilities for growth and development.