Where to Start with Kishimi and Koga: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga — how to approach The Courage to Be Disliked, their Socratic dialogue introducing Adlerian psychology and the radical claim that happiness requires the courage to be disliked. A complete reading guide.
By Lena Fischer
Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga are Japanese collaborators who together produced The Courage to Be Disliked (2013) — Kishimi as the philosopher and principal Japanese translator of Alfred Adler’s works, Koga as the professional writer who developed the Socratic dialogue format through which the ideas are presented. The book became one of the most discussed works of popular philosophy in Japan and South Korea before its English translation (2017) brought it to a global readership. Alfred Adler (1870–1937) was an Austrian psychologist who broke with Freud in 1911 and developed what he called Individual Psychology — a framework that has been far less influential in the English-speaking world than Freudian or Jungian psychology, despite offering what many readers find more useful.
Where to Start: The Courage to Be Disliked (2013)
The essential Kishimi and Koga — and one of the most genuinely liberating self-help books in any language. The Courage to Be Disliked is structured as a Platonic dialogue: a young man, skeptical and unhappy, seeks out a philosopher rumoured to teach that the world is simple and that anyone can be happy. He does not believe this, and he intends to prove it wrong. The five nights of conversation that follow are a sustained philosophical argument — not a lecture that the youth receives, but a confrontation in which his objections are real and force the philosophical positions to earn themselves.
The Adlerian reversal of causation is the dialogue’s first major confrontation. Freudian psychology is etiological: your present behaviour is caused by your past experiences. Adler’s psychology is teleological: your present behaviour is chosen because it serves future goals you are pursuing, consciously or not. The youth says he cannot go outside because of past trauma. The philosopher suggests: he has chosen the anxiety because remaining inside serves something — safety, avoidance of potential failure, the sympathy of others. The trauma was real; the power it has over present behaviour is maintained by a current choice, and current choices can be changed.
This is a position that can be applied clumsily and cruelly — used to tell people their suffering is their fault. Kishimi and Koga are careful here: the point is not that suffering wasn’t real but that treating it as a fixed, causal determinant of the future denies the person any agency. The Adlerian move is to locate agency in the present: what is this choice for? What am I moving toward? When the answer is visible, it can be examined.
The separation of tasks is the book’s most immediately applicable concept and the one most readers find transformative. The principle is simple: identify whose problem something actually is. Whether other people approve of you is their task — it belongs to them, not to you. You cannot control it. The desire for approval is a desire to manage other people’s tasks, which is both impossible and exhausting. Your tasks are your choices and their consequences. Separating these — genuinely letting go of what is not yours — is the mechanism by which the anxiety of social performance is dissolved.
The courage in the title is the courage required by this position. Living according to your own choices, without requiring others’ approval as a precondition for action, means accepting that some people will disapprove. Not inviting disapproval — not performing independence as a form of rebellion — but simply ceasing to organize your choices around its avoidance. This is what the book means by freedom, and what it means by happiness: not an emotional state but a way of relating to your own choices.
Why The Courage to Be Disliked Is the Ideal First Book
For a reader new to Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, The Courage to Be Disliked is the ideal first book because it is their bestselling work and the fullest expression of their distinctive contribution, an accessible presentation of the psychology of Alfred Adler and its application to living a freer, happier life. The Courage to Be Disliked presents Adlerian psychology through a dialogue between a philosopher and a young man, exploring how we can free ourselves from the past, the expectations of others, and the fear of being disliked. As an entry point it is ideal, for it is their best-known book and a clear statement of their approach. It welcomes the newcomer with its engaging dialogue form, its liberating ideas, and its accessible style, drawing the reader into Adlerian psychology. It is their major work and the one that best represents their thinking, so the new reader encounters their ideas directly. For the newcomer drawn to psychology and personal growth, then, The Courage to Be Disliked is the natural and ideal starting point.
What to Expect as a New Reader
As a new reader, you can expect The Courage to Be Disliked to be an engaging, accessible, and thought-provoking book about psychology and living freely. You can expect a dialogue form, for the book unfolds as a conversation between a philosopher and a skeptical young man. You can expect Adlerian psychology, for the book presents the ideas of Alfred Adler, a less familiar but influential figure. You can expect liberating ideas, for the book explores freeing ourselves from the past, from the expectations of others, and from the fear of being disliked. You can expect a focus on taking responsibility for our own happiness and relationships. You can expect provocative, sometimes counterintuitive arguments. You can expect an accessible, engaging style. Expect, in short, an engaging, accessible, and thought-provoking book about psychology and living freely, a fine introduction to the authors’ approach.
Going Deeper After Your First Book
Once The Courage to Be Disliked has introduced you to the authors’ approach, the natural next step is its sequel, which continues the dialogue and extends Adlerian psychology to further questions of relationships, love, and living well, building on the foundation of the first book. Beyond the authors’ own work, the reader can explore the wider literature of Adlerian psychology and the broader field of accessible writing on psychology, happiness, and personal growth, where the ideas the book presents are developed further. Reading more widely deepens your engagement with the authors’ distinctive contribution, the accessible presentation of Adlerian psychology and its application to living freely. Their characteristic approach runs through their work, and the reader who has connected with The Courage to Be Disliked will find it in the sequel. Building your reading journey from The Courage to Be Disliked is a matter of following its ideas into the sequel and the wider literature on psychology and growth. The reader who begins here will have an engaging foundation in Adlerian psychology and living freely.
Reading Kishimi and Koga
The Courage to Be Disliked is Kishimi and Koga’s essential and most widely read book. Readers who want to continue should move to The Courage to Be Happy (2019), the second dialogue with the same characters, which extends the framework into questions about education, relationships, and contribution.
For the full Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga bibliography, reviews, and biography, visit the Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga author page on Editors Reads.
Affiliate disclosure: Links to Amazon on this page are affiliate links. We earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where should I start with Kishimi and Koga?
The Courage to Be Disliked (2013, published in English 2017) is Kishimi and Koga's essential book — a philosophical dialogue between a young man and a sage, structured across five nights of conversation, that introduces Alfred Adler's psychology in its most liberating form. The book became a major bestseller in Japan and South Korea before its English translation brought it to a global readership. Ichiro Kishimi is a philosopher and the principal Japanese translator of Adler's works; Fumitake Koga is a professional writer who developed the dialogue format.
What is The Courage to Be Disliked about?
The book presents Adlerian psychology through a Socratic dialogue: a skeptical, unhappy young man challenges a philosopher who claims the world is simple and anyone can be happy. The Adlerian framework the philosopher presents is built on a reversal of Freudian causation — where Freud argues that past experiences cause present behaviour, Adler argues that present behaviour serves future goals. The youth's unhappiness is not caused by past trauma; it is maintained because it serves something (protection from failure, perhaps). The book covers separation of tasks, community feeling, and the courage required to act without the guarantee of approval.
Is The Courage to Be Disliked Stoic philosophy or something different?
It overlaps significantly with Stoicism — the focus on what is within your control, the emphasis on action over approval, the attention to what is genuinely your problem versus someone else's — but the Adlerian framework is distinct in its teleological emphasis. Where Stoicism focuses on acceptance of what cannot be changed, Adler focuses on the purpose that present choices are serving. The question is not 'can I accept this?' but 'what is this choice for? What goal is it moving toward?' The practical implications are similar but the analytical approach is different.
What should I read after The Courage to Be Disliked?
After The Courage to Be Disliked, Kishimi and Koga's The Courage to Be Happy continues the dialogue with the same characters, extending the Adlerian framework into questions about education, relationships, and the nature of love. For the Stoic tradition that covers similar ground from a Western philosophical perspective, Ryan Holiday's The Obstacle Is the Way is the most accessible introduction. Brené Brown's Daring Greatly addresses the vulnerability and approval-seeking that the Adlerian framework diagnoses from a social psychology rather than philosophical angle.
