The purpose of this therapy is to facilitate the individual in making meaning out of his/or her personal context, perspective, background, and experience. The individual's childhood perceptions of the family constellation and the individual's perceptions of significance within that context is a key concept. Adlerian techniques seek to discover these perceptions so that the individual can progress and achieve optimal development.

Some of the techniques used in Adlerian therapy include:

1. Analysis and Assessment: this technique is about exploration of the family constellation (sociogram of the client at home during the client's formative years) and early recollections.

2. Exploration of the Family Constellation: Adler believed birth order, sibling interaction, parent interactions, and the client's sense of his/or her psychological position in the family are important to enhance insight about how the client has selected lifestyle. Family constellation is not limited to the immediate family, but rather to those present at home during the client's formative years.

3. Reporting of the Earliest Recollections: the therapist asks the client to describe his/or her earliest recollections, which often provide insight into the patterns or interpretations the client has made in developing his/or her lifestyle.

4. Confrontation: this is used by Adlerian therapists to encourage client responsibility, looking at issues of taking responsibility for how others respond ("Why does my child yell at me?" "Because you allow him to. It is easier to give into a tantruming eight-year-old than to be the parent."), presenting existing alternatives ("You don't have to work three jobs to bankroll your capable 28-year-old. You can set limits and refuse to be taken advantage of. What do you want to do about it?"), taking responsibility for change ("Shall we continue to talk about this or do you want to take action?"), and considering time ("Knowing what you know now, how long do you plan to wait to take action? A year? Five years?").

5. Push-Button Technique: this is designed to help the client see that he/or she is responsible for how he/or she feels, both good and bad feelings. The client is first asked to visualize a happy event and re-experience the associated feelings, then remember an unhappy event and the associated feelings, and finally return to the happy event, re-experiencing the happier feelings.

6. Acting "As If": this is a form of encouraging and motivating clients to be the way they desire to be, "acting as if" the transition has already occurred.

7. Encouragement: having the client be an active participant in treatment helps the individual begin to see himself/or herself as capable.

8. Exploration of Social Dynamics: at the core, Adlerian therapist believe the client's issues are primarily social in nature.

9. Task-Setting: the client is given various tasks in his/or her life to assume responsibility for his/or her own life. Adler advised a client that he could be free of depression in two weeks if he followed the specific task plan of thinking daily of how to please another, with all of Adler's efforts aimed toward increasing the client's social interests.