chapter 3

• Individual Psychology


  Adler's opposing theory to Freud's psychoanalysis
• Differences between Adler and Freud

  • Freud reduced all motivation to sex and aggression, Adler saw people as being motivated mostly by social influences and striving for superiority or success
  • Freud assumed people have little or no choice in shaping their personality, Adler believed people are largely responsible for who they are
  • Freud's assumption that present behavior is caused by past experiences was directly opposed to Adler's notion that present behavior is shaped by people's view of the future
  • Freud placed heavy emphasis on unconscious components of behavior, Adler believed psychologically healthy people are usually aware of what they are doing and why
• Adler left Freud's circle and established individual psychology
• Social interest


  A feeling of oneness with all humankind
• Adler was an original member of Freud's Wednesday Psychological Society
• Theoretical and personal differences emerged between Adler and Freud


  Adler left the Freud circle
• Adler published Study of Organ Inferiority and Its Psychical Compensation in 1907, which assumed physical deficiencies, not sex, formed the foundation for human motivation
• Adler presented his views opposing Freud's strong sexual proclivities at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1911


  Adler and Freud recognised their differences were irreconcilable
• Adler resigned his presidency and membership in the Psychoanalytic Society in October 1911
• Adler formed the Society for Free Psychoanalytic Study, later renamed the Society for Individual Psychology
• World War I affected both Freud and Adler

  • Both had financial difficulties and borrowed money from relatives
  • Freud elevated aggression to the level of sex after viewing the horrors of war, Adler suggested social interest and compassion could be the cornerstones of human motivation
• Adler's application for an unpaid lecture position at the University of Vienna was turned down
• After the war, Adler advanced his theories through lecturing, establishing child guidance clinics, and training teachers
• Adler frequently visited the United States in the last years of his life, teaching at Columbia University and the New School for Social Research
• Adler became a permanent resident of the United States in 1932, holding a position at Long Island College of Medicine
• Adler was impressed by Americans and admired their optimism and open-mindedness
• Adler married Raissa Epstein, a fiercely independent Russian woman and early feminist
• Adler and Raissa had four children, two of whom became psychiatrists continuing their father's work
• Adler's favorite relaxation was music, and he often borrowed examples from literature in his work
• Adler identified closely with the common person, and his patients included a high percentage of people from the lower and middle classes
• Adler had an optimistic attitude toward the human condition, was intensely competitive but friendly, and believed in basic gender equality
• Raissa and Alfred Adler had four children: Alexandra and Kurt, who became psychiatrists and continued their father's work; Valentine (Vali), who died as a political prisoner of the Soviet Union in about 1942; and Cornelia (Nelly), who aspired to be an actress
• Adler


  • His favorite relaxation was music, but he also maintained an active interest in art and literature
  • He often borrowed examples from fairy tales, the Bible, Shakespeare, Goethe, and numerous other literary works
  • He identified himself closely with the common person, and his manner and appearance were consistent with that identification
  • His patients included a high percentage of people from the lower and middle classes, a rarity among psychiatrists of his time
  • He had an optimistic attitude toward the human condition, an intense competitiveness coupled with friendly congeniality, and a strong belief in basic gender equality, which combined with a willingness to forcefully advocate women's rights
• Adler died of a heart attack in Aberdeen, Scotland


  1937
• Freud, who was 14 years older than Adler, had outlived his longtime adversary
• Freud: 'For a Jew boy out of a Viennese suburb a death in Aberdeen is an unheard-of career in itself and a proof of how far he had got on. The world really rewarded him richly for his service in having contradicted psychoanalysis'
• Alfred Adler has had a profound effect on such later theorists as Harry Stack Sullivan, Karen Horney, Julian Rotter, Abraham H. Maslow, Carl Rogers, Albert Ellis, Rollo May, and others
• Adler's name is less well known than that of either Freud or Carl Jung
• Reasons for Adler's lesser fame

  • He did not establish a tightly run organization to perpetuate his theories
  • He was not a particularly gifted writer, and most of his books were compiled by a series of editors using Adler's scattered lectures
  • Many of his views were incorporated into the works of such later theorists as Maslow, Rogers, and Ellis and thus are no longer associated with Adler's name
• Adlerian theory


  A basically simple and parsimonious theory
• Main tenets of Adlerian theory

  • The one dynamic force behind people's behavior is the striving for success or superiority
  • People's subjective perceptions shape their behavior and personality
  • Personality is unified and self-consistent
  • The value of all human activity must be seen from the viewpoint of social interest
  • The self-consistent personality structure develops into a person's style of life
  • Style of life is molded by people's creative power
• Striving for success or superiority


  The one dynamic force behind people's behavior
• Striving for superiority


  The psychologically unhealthy attempt to gain personal superiority
• Striving for success


  The psychologically healthy attempt to seek success for all humanity
• Final goal


  The fictional and personalized goal that unifies personality and renders all behavior comprehensible
• By the time children reach 4 or 5 years of age, their creative power has developed to the point that they can set their final goal
• Infants have an innate drive toward growth, completion, or success
• Preliminary goals


  The conscious goals that people create and pursue in striving for their final goal
• Striving force as compensation


  People strive for superiority or success as a means of compensation for feelings of inferiority or weakness
• The striving force itself is innate, but its nature and direction are due both to feelings of inferiority and to the goal of superiority