Psychiatrist whose influential system of individual psychology
introduced the term inferiority feeling, later widely and
often inaccurately called inferiority complex. He developed
a flexible, supportive psychotherapy to direct those emotionally
disabled by inferiority feelings toward maturity, common sense,
and social usefulness.
Throughout his life Adler maintained a strong awareness
of social problems, and this served as a principal motivation
in his work. From his earliest years as a physician (M.D.,
University of Vienna Medical School, 1895), he stressed
consideration of the patient in relation to his total environment,
and he began developing a humanistic, holistic approach
to human problems.
About 1900 Adler began to explore psychopathology within
the context of general medicine and in 1902 became closely
associated with Sigmund Freud. Gradually, however, differences
between the two became irreconcilable, notably after the
appearance of Adler's Studie über Minderwertigkeit
von Organen (1907; Study of Organ Inferiority and Its Psychical
Compensation), in which he suggested that persons try to
compensate psychologically for a physical disability and
its attendant feeling of inferiority. Unsatisfactory compensation
results in neurosis. Adler increasingly downplayed Freud's
basic contention that sexual conflicts in early childhood
cause mental illness, and he further came to confine sexuality
to a symbolic role in human strivings to overcome feelings
of inadequacy. Outspokenly critical of Freud by 1911, Adler
and a group of followers severed ties with Freud's circle
and began developing what they called individual psychology,
first outlined in Über den nervösen Charakter
(1912; The Neurotic Constitution). The system was elaborated
in later editions of this work and in other writings, such
as Menschenkenntnis (1927; Understanding Human Nature).
Individual psychology maintains that the overriding motivation
in most people is a striving for what Adler somewhat misleadingly
termed superiority--i.e., self-realization, completeness,
or perfection. This striving for superiority may be frustrated
by feelings of inferiority, inadequacy, or incompleteness
arising from physical defects, low social status, pampering
or neglect during childhood, or other causes encountered
in the natural course of life. Individuals can compensate
for their feelings of inferiority by developing their skills
and abilities, or, less healthily, they may develop an inferiority
complex, which comes to dominate their behaviour. Overcompensation
for inferiority feelings can take the form of an egocentric
striving for power and self-aggrandizing behaviour at others'
expense.
Each person develops his personality and strives for perfection
in his own particular way, in what Adler termed a style
of life, or lifestyle. The individual's lifestyle forms
in early childhood and is partly determined by what particular
inferiority affected him most deeply during his formative
years. The striving for superiority coexists with another
innate urge: to cooperate and work with other people for
the common good, a drive that Adler termed the social interest.
Mental health is characterized by reason, social interest,
and self-transcendence; mental disorder by feelings of inferiority
and self-centred concern for one's safety and superiority
or power over others. The Adlerian psychotherapist directs
the patient's attention to the unsuccessful, neurotic character
of his attempts to cope with feelings of inferiority. Once
the patient has become aware of these, the therapist builds
up his self-esteem, helps him adopt more realistic goals,
and encourages more useful behaviour and a stronger social
interest.
In 1921 Adler established the first child-guidance clinic
in Vienna, soon thereafter opening and maintaining about
30 more there under his direction. Adler first went to the
United States in 1926 and became visiting professor at Columbia
University in 1927. He was appointed visiting professor
of the Long Island College of Medicine in New York in 1932.
In 1934 the government in Austria closed his clinics. Many
of his later writings, such as What Life Should Mean to
You (1931), were directed to the general reader. H.L. and
R.R. Ansbacher edited The Individual Psychology of Alfred
Adler (1956) and Superiority and Social Interest (1964).
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