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Alfred Adler | |
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| Born | 7th February 1870 Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus, Vienna, Austria |
| Died | 28th May 1937 Aberdeen, Scotland |
Alfred Adler was a Jewish-Austrian psychologist and medical doctor born in Rudolfsheim, Vienna, Austria, and is known for founding Individual Psychology as well as being a key member of Sigmund Freud's Wednesday Psychological Society, though he later broke away due to ideological differences. Adler resigned along with other members and founded the Society for Individual Psychology.[1]
Alfred Adler emphasized human consciousness, the drive for personal competence, and the human need for community belonging. His most famous concepts are the "inferiority complex," the "superiority complex," and the concept of "lifestyle."[1]
Psychology[edit | edit source]
Preface[edit | edit source]
Alfred Adler's emphasis on concepts like inferiority and superiority, community feeling, and final goals, alongside his advocacy for a bourgeois therapeutic focus on individual development, lacks attention to oppressive structural systems. Some of these concepts are useful, specifically Gemeinschaftsgefühl, as it recognizes that the social relations between people are of the greatest importance.[1]
But Adler explains away all morbidities of society as individual faults that originate from inferiority, as opposed to one's class relations and class and material conditions. Adler explains all this away with individual inferiority as the cause; through this, he obscures systemic causes, framing them as an individual's personal failure.[1]
Adler also pays little attention to how poverty, exploitation, unemployment, misogyny, imperialism, and racism all produce mental illness. In reality, inferiority and one's ambition are born out of real, structured inequality. By placing all these issues in the hands of individuals, with his advice of therapy, willpower, and re-orientation, Adler pushes people toward adapting to and accepting the current social arrangements that create these problems.[1]
Inferiority & Superiority Complex[edit | edit source]
Adler argued that all human behaviour is fueled by our striving for success, competence, and superiority. Because, as children, we are dependent on adults for our survival, we develop feelings of inferiority; however, these feelings are not negative, as they are the engine for our pursuit of growth. These feelings of inferiority motivate us to overcome them by striving for mastery.[1]
If a person is overwhelmed by these feelings of inferiority, they may develop an "inferiority complex" or, rather, respond with a "superiority complex" by being arrogant and dominating others to hide their deep-seated insecurities.[1]
"To be a human being means to possess a feeling of inferiority which constantly presses towards its own conquest." - Alfred Adler, Understanding Human Nature
"The greater the feeling of inferiority that has been experienced, the more powerful is the urge for conquest and the more violent the emotional agitation." - Alfred Adler, Understanding Human Nature
Gemeinschaftsgefühl[edit | edit source]
Gemeinschaftsgefühl roughly translates to community feeling or interest. Adler believed that a person's mental health is dependent on their social interest: healthy individuals strive for success in a manner that benefits the people around them, and unhealthy individuals, lacking in social interest, pursue success for purely personal gain.[1]
"To see with the eyes of another, to hear with the ears of another, to feel with the heart of another. For the time being, this seems to me an admissible definition of what we call social feeling." - Alfred Adler, The Collected Clinical Works of Alfred Adler
Goal-Directed Behavior[edit | edit source]
Sigmund Freud believed that our actions were guided by our past experiences. Adler states that we are pulled by our future, as all our actions and behaviour are pulled towards a specific, self-selected goal, and that we create our own imagined ultimate goals for ourselves. Even if these goals are unconscious or fictional, they pull our actions, thoughts, and personality.[1]
"No man can think, feel, will, nor even dream, without everything being defined, conditioned, limited, directed by a goal which floats before him." - Alfred Adler, Understanding Human Nature
Indivisible Self[edit | edit source]
Individual Psychology, according to Adler, does not mean a focus on the self, but rather the Latin word individuum, which means "indivisible." Adler rejected Freud's assertion that the mind is split into different parts that are in conflict; rather, we are a unified, holistic entity where all our actions, thoughts, and emotions work towards our goals.[1]
"Body and mind are co-operating as indivisible parts of one whole." - Alfred Adler, Mind and Body
Style of Life[edit | edit source]
Adler stated that everyone, by the age of five or six, develops their own unique, ingrained lifestyle, or "Style of Life," which is a personal blueprint for navigating and interacting within the world, such as solving problems and relating to other people. Style of Life is formed by how a child interacts with and interprets their own environment, physical limitations, and family dynamics. Once formed, it remains static throughout one's life and acts as a lens through which they view all experiences.[1]
"The style of life is a unity because it has grown out of the difficulties of early life and out of the striving for a goal." - Alfred Adler, The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler
Birth Order[edit | edit source]
Adler was the first psychologist to argue that birth order and family dynamics impact personality. He argued that children in the same family develop differently due to these factors, as the oldest child typically receives all the attention initially but loses it as a new sibling is born, which might make them high-achieving and responsible. In contrast, the middle child often feels ignored and so becomes hypercompetitive to try to catch up with the oldest child, which might reflect a rebellious or peacemaker personality.[1]
The youngest child is the baby of the family, so they never lose that attention, which is typically reflected in their creativity and sociability, though they can become spoiled and dependent. If one is an only child, it completely changes things, as they may struggle with sharing and interacting with their peers but interact efficiently with adults and typically develop similarly to the oldest child.[1]
"Birth order affects personality development." - Alfred Adler, What Life Could Mean to You