Book · 2013
The Courage to Be Disliked
by Ichiro Kishimi
A Socratic dialogue walks through Adlerian psychology's central claim: your past does not determine your life, and you can choose who you are right now.
What does Reddit think of The Courage to Be Disliked?
Three mentions across seven years, spread across r/CPTSD, r/attachment_theory, and r/askpsychology — thin data, but each mention lands in a context where the book is doing actual work. The r/CPTSD commenter (↑10) describes it with the specific ambivalence of someone whose resistance to Adlerian ideas is breaking down: "The only part of me which disagrees is the bit that is feeling better for once." That's not a ringing endorsement; it's something more honest. In r/askpsychology, the focus lands on Adler's inversion of the anger-action causal chain — not that you got angry and acted, but that you wanted to act angrily and deployed the emotion to do it. The r/attachment_theory mention uses the book as background support for the shift from external to internal validation, without naming it directly as the solution.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · Adlerian teleology vs. Freudian causation
- · Separation of tasks: yours vs. others'
- · Self-acceptance without external validation
- · The social cost of authentic living
- · Present-moment agency over biographical determinism
Common praise
- + The anger-as-tool inversion in the r/askpsychology thread reframes a mechanism people recognize immediately from their own behavior.
- + The r/CPTSD commenter reports genuine emotional improvement while still refusing to accept the whole framework — the book survives partial skepticism.
- + The Socratic dialogue format makes abstract philosophical positions feel argued rather than asserted.
- + Readers working on self-validation find the "separation of tasks" concept operationally useful, not just philosophically tidy.
Common criticism
- − Three mentions in seven years across Reddit's mental health and psychology communities is not a signal of broad traction.
- − The Adlerian position that trauma doesn't constrain you lands hard for CPTSD readers — the r/CPTSD thread captures that friction directly.
- − The dialogue format, which some find accessible, others find contrived when it carries an argument this loaded.
- − No subreddit treats it as a canonical recommendation; it surfaces as a supporting reference rather than a first-line suggestion.
Who it's for
You're already in therapy or working through attachment patterns and you want a philosophical framework to run alongside the clinical work — this is where The Courage to Be Disliked tends to show up. The r/attachment_theory and r/CPTSD threads both reach for it not as an introduction to psychology but as a way of naming something readers are already moving toward. If Adler's teleological premise sounds hostile — the idea that your past explains nothing — you may find the r/CPTSD commenter's approach useful: read it skeptically, keep what shifts something, discard the rest. Readers who want a clean, evidence-backed self-help framework with citations will be frustrated. Readers willing to sit inside a Socratic argument for a few hours will probably find at least one chapter that doesn't let go.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for The Courage to Be Disliked?
Top-upvoted quotes across the subreddits where this book is mentioned. Click through to read the full thread.
“Ugh. I hate it. The only part of me which disagrees is the bit that is feeling better for once, having started The Courage to be Disliked. Adlerian philosophy is hard, hard emotional listening, but I'm finding it really helpful. I'm choosing to change. (I don't accept it all, btw, b…
“Identity isn’t fixed read Alfred Adler psychology or The courage to be Disliked, because you’re right Determinism renders us powerless to our past, we say I act like this because X y z. When we focus so much on the past or “cause” we lose the present and the ability to transform the NOW. I’m again…
“The book that helped me immensely to get a better perspective was The courage to be disliked by Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi. It made me happier and content. Try it!
“The book, "The Courage to be Disliked" explores the Adlerian perspective and example I found interesting from the book is about anger. This perspective flips the traditional cause and effect relationship, so it's not that you got angry and then acted angrily, but that you wanted to act angrily so yo…
“You've had some good advice about boundaries and communicating needs. However, what I think has been under-emphasised so far, and is the real juice that you're after, is working to be more self-validated instead of other-validated/externally motivated. That's the heart of the issue really. You need …
“I really loved The Courage to Be Disliked. The ideas are based on Adlerian theory, but it's presented as a dialogue between philosophy teacher/student. It's very applicable to self and client.
Convinced? Pick up The Courage to Be Disliked
What else does r/CPTSD read?
Other books mentioned in the same sub, ranked. Shared-sub overlap with this title breaks ties.
Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving
Pete Walker
Pete Walker names the four trauma responses—fight, flight, freeze, fawn—and shows survivors how to stop over-relying on whichever one kept them alive.
The Body Keeps the Score
Bessel van der Kolk
A psychiatrist's account of how trauma rewires the brain and body, and what 690 Reddit mentions across trauma subs say about whether the treatment map holds up.
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
Lindsay C. Gibson
A psychologist names the four types of emotionally immature parents and shows adult survivors how to stop waiting for a repair that isn't coming.
Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect
Jonice Webb
A therapist names what your parents never did: the neglect you can't quite prove, because nothing happened.
Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men
Lundy Bancroft
A domestic violence counselor lays out exactly why abusive men do what they do — and why 'he can't help it' is the wrong question.
What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma
Stephanie Foo
A journalist diagnosed with CPTSD at 30 reports back from years of treatment, research, and her own childhood wreckage.
The Courage to Be Disliked — frequently asked
What does Reddit actually say about The Courage to Be Disliked?+
Very little, numerically. Three mentions across r/CPTSD, r/attachment_theory, and r/askpsychology over seven years, with no overall sentiment score. What exists is substantive rather than promotional — the r/CPTSD commenter (↑10) describes a genuine internal conflict with the Adlerian ideas while reporting real benefit. That's a more credible data point than a hundred upvoted recommendations.
Is The Courage to Be Disliked useful for people with trauma histories?+
Depends on how you hold the framework. The r/CPTSD commenter is explicit: Adlerian philosophy is "hard, hard emotional listening," and the premise that the past doesn't determine you is exactly the premise that CPTSD challenges. That partial uptake seems like the realistic use case.
How does The Courage to Be Disliked handle anger, and does Reddit find that convincing?+
The r/askpsychology thread (↑6) focuses specifically on the book's inversion: Adler argues you don't get angry and then act — you decide to act angrily and produce the emotion to justify it. The commenter flags this as the example they found most interesting. No one in the thread disputes it directly, though the framing is noted as a "flip" from the intuitive causal story.
Should I read The Courage to Be Disliked if I'm already working on self-validation?+
Probably yes, conditionally. The r/attachment_theory mention positions the book as background for the shift from external to internal validation — treating it as conceptual support rather than a standalone program. If you already know what you're working on, the Adlerian vocabulary for it may land usefully. If you're looking for a structured protocol, this isn't that book.