Why Your Past Does Not Determine Your Future The central divide between Adler and Freud can be summarized in two words: teleology versus etiology. Etiology is the study of causes. It looks backward, asking what events in the past produced the present condition. Freud’s entire psychoanalytic project was etiological. He believed that understanding your childhood trauma, uncovering repressed memories, and analyzing unconscious conflicts would explain why you are the way you are. The past determines the present. Your neurosis is caused by events that happened years or decades ago, and healing requires excavating those events and processing them. Teleology is...