I appreciate your emphasizing this point on emotions, Henry. It is a good illustration of the complexity of holistic thinking.

It is interesting that when external events or other people do impact on us and our emotional states, it is because they are either assisting or impeding our movement towards our final, fictive goal. Since we are social creatures (even if we are attempting to evade the social task), we must construct our final goal within an interpersonal context (as Adler states in the quote you cite: "There is no rage without an enemy."). Similarly, we must construct a goal from the context of our early situation, attempting - with a child's sensibilities - to envision a possibility within this that would bring some sense of security (even if, as Adler emphasized, it is ultimately false since there is little security in life).

Trevor Hjertaas, Psy. D.