Adler's individual psychology is one of the most famous psychological theories that has influenced modern concepts, as well as influenced the doctrine of modern sociology and psychology in general.
Biography of Alfred Adler
Alfred was born into a poor large family of Jewish origin. He stubbornly struggled with his physical weakness. Whenever possible, young Alfred talked and played with the children of the neighborhood, who always willingly accepted him into their company. Thus, he found among his friends that sense of recognition and self-worth, which he was deprived of at home. The influence of this experience can be seen in Adler's subsequent work, when he highlights the importance of empathy and shared values, calling it a social interest, thanks to which, in his opinion, a person is able to realize his potential and become a useful member of society.
Adler Ideas
Adler wanted to create a psychology close to real life, which would make it possible to understand other people by their biographies, which are always different.
The works he published since 1920, as well as his lectures, were to make his psychology accessiblefor everyone and make it understandable. In the 1920s he gave a series of lectures in Vienna and published them in 1927 under the title Knowledge of Human Nature.
The World War I period was the era in which individual psychology developed. As part of the school reform in the Austrian capital, Adler and his staff opened about 30 educational and counseling institutions. In 1920 he was appointed director of the first Viennese clinic dedicated to child psychology, and taught in pedagogy in the city. With the publication of The Practice and Theory of Individual Psychology (1930), which contained lectures to introduce psychotherapy to physicians, psychologists, and teachers, Adler began to expand on his theory.
The origin of individual psychology
Adler's individual psychology replaces Freud's explanatory principle that all human behavior is tied to sexual libido with "compensation" for feelings of inferiority. “To be human is to feel inferior,” writes Adler. The main task for a person is to eliminate this feeling. In his early work, he used, for example, the Napoleon complex to illustrate his theory in practice.
Sociologists have refined the theory of the inferiority complex on a broader level, taking into account the cultural, economic and political understanding of the term. Adler soon became interested in the psychology of physical disorders and met Sigmund Freud in 1899, with whom he formed the Psychoanalytic Society in Vienna, of which he became president.
Adler hadthe influence of the idea of Hans Vaihinger (German pessimist philosopher) about the influence of certain factors on behavior. The theory of individual psychology has evolved from many doctrines, various philosophical and psychoanalytic currents. Adler developed the concepts of organic inferiority and overcompensation, which are still used by psychologists.
Clash between Freud and Adler
The disagreement with Freud on the topic of the influence of the libido and the suppression of the repression of feelings occurred in 1911 at the Congress of Psychoanalysis in Weimar, and the Society for Individual Psychology was formed in 1912. Adler believes that the theory of repression (repression) should be replaced by the concept of "defensive tendencies of the ego" as a neurotic state arising from feelings of inferiority and overcompensation.
Individual psychology was born out of this rift in the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and the emergence of the Society for Individual Psychology. Since then, Alfred Adler's individual psychology has coexisted alongside Freudian psychoanalysis, which its creator would disseminate widely until his death in 1937, finding time between consultations, courses and conferences.
While Freud initially attached in his discovery the huge role and importance of sexuality in the emergence of neuroses (libido), Adler insisted on power instincts, "compensation for feelings of inferiority" and on the constant rivalry that follows from all these neurotic feelings and emotional content. Freud's influence on Adler, of course,not to be underestimated.
However, in scientific circles there is an opinion that Adler had his own concepts before meeting Freud. Interacting with Sigmund Freud, he retained his understanding of the human psyche, and after leaving him, he created theories that differed from Freud's psychoanalysis. Adler joined the group (later to become the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society) as a well-formed young specialist who had already developed his own concept of individual psychology.
Adler's theory
Unlike Freud, Adler was convinced that the human personality implies a certain finality, that his behavior, in the broadest sense of the word, is always a function of a goal oriented from childhood. He called the "script of life" this fundamental orientation, long before the famous "fundamental plan" of Jean-Paul Sartre.
For Adler, all "values" are born from the needs of social life. In a broader sense, in his opinion, the basis of everything is a developed sense of community, able to harmonize individual needs and the needs of society.
Adler recognizes that life is a struggle. One has to struggle in some way, trying to dominate in one way or another. Failure in this innate tendency to power and dominance gives rise to what seems to be the leitmotif of individual psychology - "feelings of inferiority." In short, individual psychology aims to study personality complexes and psychological compensations that were laidin childhood.
In a child who must constantly exceed his own abilities (at the request of his parents or those who raise him), this imperious tendency is especially strong. However, since the restrictions that his environment places on him, mainly his parents, make him suppress desires. Thus, a clear conflict of the first years is inevitable. Adler believes that the feeling of inferiority is "natural" in a child, whose weakness is real in comparison with adults, but in the future, with the development of a person's personality, it should disappear, and will disappear if the need for self-affirmation and development is satisfied in a positive way, that is, in social or cultural reality.
Otherwise, feelings of inferiority crystallize and become "complex". According to this theory, inferiority generates as an automatic consequence the search for compensation, already at the level of physiological life. Thus, "compensation" appears to him as a key concept, as does Freud's "repression".
Subject of individual psychology
The name of Adler's theory "Individual psychology" comes from the Latin word individum (indivisible) and expresses the idea of the integrity of people's mental life, in particular, the absence of boundaries and contradictions between the conscious and the subconscious. Through the behavior and way of life of any person, his life style runs like a red thread, aimed at the realization of life goals (in later works - the meaning of life).
The purpose, meaning and style of a person's life are formed in the first 3-5years and are due to the peculiarities of family education. The subject of study of individual psychology is the illumination of the problems of the soul and body.
Feelings of inferiority
When a person is born with a physical, constitutional, organic or social inferiority, a whole series of certain unconscious processes, both physiological and mental, arise to restore some balance, to bring about mechanisms that somehow compensate for this inferiority. From this point of view, the Freudian "libido" seems to be subordinated to the "instinct" of domination.
Manifestation of the complex
For example, the loving nature of Don Juan is better explained by vanity and the desire for power, rather than eroticism and a great passion for women. Adler also believes that there are female Don Juan, whose behavior expresses the intention to dominate and humiliate a man. He considered masculine women to have a specific inferiority complex, with a desire for total control over the opposite sex.
In his opinion, this can easily lead to frigidity or homosexuality. Adler believed that the need to dominate could also manifest itself under the guise of compassion and selflessness, making women love a weak or crippled creature. He also believes that the inferiority manifested at this time in life may play a large role in the neuroses that are so common at a critical age.
Teaching aboutneuroses
In addition to describing the normal psyche, the Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler was engaged in describing phenomena that help to understand the human personality, to acquire knowledge about a person - he considered deviant and pathological mental deviations as a doctor. According to the principle of the unity of mental processes, he saw in these deviations erroneous answers to the demands of life.
Feeling a strong sense of inferiority (the concept of an inferiority complex) can lead to overcompensation in the form of an exaggerated desire for dominance, a huge will to power. Adler believed that the concept of neurosis is a link between normal and neurotic psychology. He read psychosis as a more acute form of neurosis, therefore, in his opinion, it can be treated with the help of psychoanalysis.
Types of compensation complexes
Every person, according to Adler, thinks and acts on the basis of the image of his own Self and his life goals, the neurotic, in his opinion, is the one who excessively mobilizes his mental forces in order to respond to feelings of inferiority. Such people are most often completely focused on the fictitious goal of power and superiority.
Thus, the neurotic is forced by his irrational complexes to act and live, obeying the instincts of the domination of his own ego. Adler stated that the need to compensate for the feeling of inferiority in neurosis is the main and key problem of the neurotic.
Adler sees in extreme susceptibility and sensitivitythe beginning of a feeling of inferiority. Such a neurotic is very easy to emotionally hurt. People suffering from neuroses are characterized by pathological forms of jealousy, envy, resentment.
There is also positive compensation, even triumphant: when a person who, faced with his feelings of inferiority, decisively overcame it to such an extent that the result was more than he could have received if he had not suffered from any complex, nor the pursuit of pathological power.
Alfred Adler Publications
The founder of individual psychology publishes articles and important works in Europe and the USA: "Treatment and Education", "Guide to Individual Psychology", "Knowledge of Man", "Nervous Temperament". One of the fundamental works of Adler's personality theory is The Practice and Theory of Individual Psychology. Among his other significant works are "The study of physical inferiority and its mental compensation", "Neurotic constitution", "The meaning of life", "Comprehension of human nature", "The science of life", "Social interest: a challenge to humanity", "Lifestyle".
Influence of Adler and his concepts
Individual psychology has made a great contribution to the psychology of family relationships, educational and clinical psychology. Followers of individual psychology in Western Europe and the United States are united in associations of individualist psychologists. There are also individual psychology institutes and journals that develop this concept in German andEnglish.
