Alfred Adler

1870-1937

Individual Inferiority
Psychology Superiority
complexes

Social Interest Style of Life

Dreams and Early

Birth Order
Recollections
Introduction

Alfred Adler, in his childhood, faced illness, the death of a younger brother, and envy
towards his healthier older sibling. Struggling with rickets, he felt inferior and worked hard to
overcome physical limitations, eventually gaining self-esteem. Adler emphasized the
significance of peer relationships in his personality theory, contrasting Freud's focus on the
Oedipus complex. Despite early academic challenges, Adler rose to the top through
perseverance. His childhood struggles influenced his theory of overcoming inferiority to shape
one's destiny.

Relationship with Freud

“Freud and his followers are uncommonly fond of describing me in an unmistakably

boastful way as one of his disciples, because I had many an argument with him in a
psychological group. But I never attended one of his lectures, and when this group was to be
sworn in to support the Freudian views, I was the first to leave it. (1938, p. 254) In my
investigations concerning dreams I had two great aids. The first was provided by Freud, with his
unacceptable views. I profited by his mistakes. I was never psychoanalyzed, and I would have at
once rejected any such proposal, because the rigorous acceptance of his doctrine destroys
scientific impartiality which in any case is not very great.”

Individual Psychology: Adler’s Theory of Personality

Alfred Adler fashioned an image of human nature that focused on the uniqueness of each
person and denied the universality of biological motives and goals ascribed to us by Sigmund
Freud. In Adler’s view, each of us is primarily a social being. Our personalities are shaped by our
unique social environments and interactions. Adler minimized the role of sex. To Adler, the
conscious, not the unconscious, was at the core of personality.

Inferiority Feelings: The Source of All Human Striving

“to be a human being means the possession of a feeling of inferiority that is constantly pressing
on towards its own conquest” (Adler, 1938) p. 73)
At first Adler talked about organic inferiorities (physical weaknesses), but then he moved
towards psychological inferiorities as well. Individual growth results from compensation, from
our attempts to overcome our real or imagined inferiorities.

Inferiority and Superiority Complexes: Compensation Gone Wrong

Inferiority complex is condition that develops when a person is unable to compensate

for normal inferiority feelings. Adler found this to be the case of many people who came to him
for treatment.

Inferiority complex can arise from

• Organic inferiorities
• Spoiling (too much attention at home → expecting attention from everyone → attention
not given → maybe I am the problem → inferiority complex).
• Neglecting (too less attention → worthlessness → I am inferior).

Superiority Complex develops when a person overcompensates for normal inferiority

feelings. This involves an exaggerated opinion of one’s abilities and accomplishments (these
may actually be true or not at all true, in any case, the person is given to pride and vanity and
excessive self-centeredness).

Striving for Superiority: Our Goal in Life

He did not mean superiority in the usual sense of the word, nor did the concept relate to
the superiority complex. Striving for superiority is not an attempt to be better than everyone else.
What Adler meant was a drive for perfection; to perfect ourselves, to make ourselves complete or
whole.

Striving for superiority does not decrease tension, rather it increases it.

Humans, as well as societies as a whole move towards this goal.

Since this ‘perfection’ or any ideal that we set for ourselves is obviously unattainable,
this concept for striving for it is also called ‘Fictional Finalism’.

(After he broke with Freud and achieved recognition for his own work, he changed and said that
people are motivated more by social interest than by the needs for power and dominance.)
Style of Life

A unique character structure or pattern of personal behaviors and characteristics by which

each of us strives for perfection.

The style of life is learned from social interactions and is so firmly crystallized by the age
of 4 or 5 that it is difficult to change thereafter.

On the other hand; Adler also believed that we create our selves, our personality, our
character. We are free to choose and create it ourselves. Once created, however, the style of life
remains constant throughout life. He called this concept the creative power of self.

Basic styles of life include the dominant (self centerdness without social regard. More
extreme ones attack others, less virulent ones attack themselves to hurt others), getting
(dependant on others for satisfaction; the most common type), avoiding (no attempt to face life
problems), and socially useful type (cope with problems within a well-developed framework of
social interest). The first three types are not prepared to cope with the problems of everyday life.
They are unable to cooperate with other people and the clash between their style of life and the
real world results in abnormal behavior, which is manifested in neuroses and psychoses. They
lack what Adler came to call social interest.

Social Interest

Our innate potential to cooperate with other people to achieve personal and societal goals.
Adler believed that people have a fundamental need to belong in order to be healthy, well
functioning individuals.

Birth Order

Order of birth is a major social influence in childhood, one from which we create our style of
life.

• First born: Dominant, perfectionist, controlling, nostalgic, high self esteem.

Dethronement when the second child arrives. May become stubborn and hostile. Older
the age when second child arrives, less is the feeling of dethronement.
• Second Born: May take older sibling as model, threat, or competition. Risk takers. Less
power hungry.
 • Last Born: Either learn at a fast pace and become very successful, or remain dependent
on others and spoiled.
• Only Child: Mature early, maybe attention hungry in life outside home.

Dreams, Early Recollections, and Birth Order

These were three basic assessments in Adler’s theory.

Early recollections A personality assessment technique in which our earliest memories,

whether of real events or fantasies, are assumed to reveal the primary interest of our life. Adler
believed that: “People remember from early childhood (a) only images that confirm and support
their current views of themselves in the world … and (b) only those memories that support their
direction of striving for significance and security. [His] focus on selective memory and lifestyle
emphasize what is remembered. In contrast, Freud’s approach to interpreting early memories
emphasizes what is forgotten through the mechanism of repression.”

Adler did not believe that dreams fulfill wishes or reveal hidden conflicts. Rather,
dreams involve our feelings about a current problem and what we intend to do about it. A dream
of falling indicates that the person’s emotional view involves a demotion or loss, a flying dream
indicates a sense of striving upward, an ambitious style of life in which the person desires to be
above or better than others. Dreams that combine flying and falling involve a fear of being too
ambitious and thus failing. A dream of being chased suggests a feeling of weakness in relation to
other people. Dreaming one is naked indicates a fear of giving oneself away. Being paralyzed:
facing insoluble problems, School exams Being unprepared for situation, Wearing the wrong
clothes Being disturbed by one’s faults, Sexual themes Retreating from sex or inadequate
information about sex, Rage An angry or hostile style of life, Death Unresolved issues about the
dead person.

Adler had no desire to use psychological tests to assess personality. He argued that tests
create artificial situations that provide ambiguous results. Instead of relying on tests, Adler
thought therapists should develop their intuition. He did, however, support tests of memory and
intelligence; it was tests of personality he criticized.
 Carl Jung
1875-1961

Libido as Energy Ego (conscious)

Mental Attitudes/
Individuation
Psych Functions

Developmental Unconscious &

Stages Archetypes
Introduction:
Freud considered him his son but eventually Jung separated from Freud’s school of thought and
developed his own school of thought called ‘Analytical Psychology’. He removed focus from
sex, explained Libido in different terms, and elaborated the function of unconscious even more
than Freud. Jung led a colorful sex life, hence he didn’t think sex played as much role in
motivation as Freud believed because of his own repressed sexual needs.
Jung borrowed a lot of concepts from physics in his explanations of libido as a source of energy
in human life. He used the word Psyche for personality. Libido is further directed into two
directions:
Libido: A Source of Energy

Psyche Energy
General Life (used to fuel
Energy personality and its
functions)

Principles of Psychic Energy

Principle of Opposites
Every thought and feeling has its opposite. The conflicts between these opposites is what
generates psychic energy. Higher the conflict, higher the amount of energy produced.
Principle of Equivalence
Similar to law of conservation of energy, psychic energy is also conserved in the system. If
interest dissipates in one area, it shifts to another area. But the area where interest is now shifted
must be equivalent in value to the one where energy was invested before. All residual energy
goes to the personal unconscious. At the time of sleep, energy shifts towards dreams. Hence is
continually redistributed.
Principle of Entropy
 Like heat flows from hot object to cold object, when a conflict arises the area with more energy
tries to shift energy to other area so that a balance can be achieved. This is an ideal state and is
rarely achieved, otherwise there will be no source for psychic energy.
Aspects of Personality
Ego
It is the conscious part, our awareness about everything. Our thoughts feelings perception.
Mental Attitudes
We have two opposing mental attitudes that determine how we react to situations. Extraversion
(orientation toward the external world and other people), and Introversion (orientation toward
one’s own thoughts and feelings).
Psychological Functions
These functions refer to different and opposing ways of perceiving both the external real world
and our subjective inner world
Irrational: Sensing Intuiting
Rational: Thinking Feeling
Psychological Types
Multiply two mental attitudes with four functions. Eight psychological types:
1. Extraverted thinking Logical, objective, dogmatic
2. Extraverted feeling Emotional, sensitive, sociable; more typical of women than men
3. Extraverted sensing Outgoing, pleasure seeking, adaptable
4. Extraverted intuiting Creative, able to motivate others, and to seize opportunities
5. Introverted thinking More interested in ideas than in people
6. Introverted feeling Reserved, undemonstrative, yet capable of deep emotion
7. Introverted sensing Outwardly detached, expressing themselves in aesthetic pursuits
8. Introverted intuiting Concerned with the unconscious more than everyday reality
Unconscious
The Personal Unconscious: Things that were once conscious but now they’re not. Similar to
pre-conscious in Freud’s terms. As people grow and more and more things pile up in their
unconscious, they start to develop Complexes. A core or pattern of emotions, memories,
perceptions, and wishes in the personal unconscious organized around a common theme, such as
power or status. Such as Sex, Fame, Achievement.
The Collective Unconscious: The deepest level of the psyche containing the accumulation of
inherited experiences of human and pre-human species. It has various Archetypes (Images of
universal experiences contained in the collective unconscious). Jung gave 4 basic Archetypes:

• Persona: A mask, a public face we wear to present ourselves as someone different from
who we really are. It is necessary because we are forced to play so many roles in life in. It
can be dangerous if we deceive ourselves or other people into thinking this is the real us.
• Shadow: The deepest, most powerful primal instincts. It’s the job of the ego to repress
the animal instincts enough so that we are considered civilized while allowing sufficient
expression of the instincts to provide creativity and vigor.
• Anima/Animus: The psyche of the woman contains masculine aspects (the animus
archetype), and the psyche of the man contains feminine aspects (the anima archetype).
• Self: the unity, integration, and harmony of the total personality. To Jung, the striving
toward that wholeness is the ultimate goal of life. This archetype involves bringing
together and balancing all parts of the personality.
Developmental Stages
He gave 3 stages.

• Childhood, where ego starts developing when we differentiate among ourselves and
others.
• Adolescence characterized by extraversion.
• Middle age where our interest turns internal. Middle age is most crucial according to
Jung.
Individuation
A condition of psychological health resulting from the integration of all conscious and
unconscious facets of the personality. Our goal in life. This often comes to attention in middle
age. Steps to attain self-fulfillment can be:

• Confront the Unconscious

• Dethrone the Persona
• Accept Our Dark Sides
• Accept Our Anima and Animus