Trent H.:
Behavioral motivation is far too complex to responsibly shoe-horn into a framework like this. For instance, the attention-getting person would not necessarily have to stop anything, nor necessarily have to feel bad about irritating the others; nor does the attention-getting necessarily have to have anything to do with filling a need.
Neurotic behavior (example: "THC feels good but it makes me feel bad because it goes against the precepts") does not get one anywhere in these matters. On the contrary, sagacious rational thinking-- which is the hall mark of the human brain-- just might do the trick.
All points with which I totally agree. Adler's thoughts about motivation, while certainly more on track than those of his contempororary Freud, can't come close to explaining all human behavior. Knowledge gained from neuroscientific and psychological study since Adler's time has definitely shown a much clearer picture. This is why I added the qualifier "theoretically" to my statement of Adler's belief about motivation. Perhaps I should have made it clearer that I wasn't claiming that his theory was all-inclusive. I did, however, choose to use that framework for the examples I used. I think it's one valid way of looking at what happens when a person who desires fulfilling and meaningful social relationships and interactions realizes that some of the things that they were doing in those interactions were actually undermining their efforts.
I also think it's one valid way of explaining how, having had some mundane-level insight as a side-effect of trying to do fundamental high-dharma insight practices, I (being the example used) saw that a behavior that was contrary to the Buddhist precepts was actually unskillful much of the time. The fact that the behavior may break a rule written down over 2000 years ago for followers of a religion I don't belong to is of no concern. (No offense to anyone who practices Buddhism as a religion -- I just think that its meditation practices, and much of its psychology and philosophy are great, but I'd never pass as a "good Buddhist.")
What IS of concern is that the precepts seem to have been written not only for the good of social order or just because "that's what good people do," but also because many of the behaviors they describe can be causes of suffering in a mundane sense, and obstruction to serious dharma practice. So, if the increased mindfulness that results from doing heavy duty insight practice also causes a person to see the negative effects of breaking a certain precept, which is a part of their mundane life, it can make them not want to break that precept (often) anymore.
I think this is one way of explaining some of the statements that "such and such level of enlightenment makes you unable to do these bad things." I don't believe those statements for a second -- but I do believe that the process in the above two paragraphs can and do occur. I also think that reasonable descriptions of how enlightened people often choose more skillful behaviors could be magnified and exaggerated into the dreadful limited emotional and behavioral range enlightenment models, which may explain one of the many reasons that such models exist today.