Alfred Adler

(1870 – 1937)
 • Was born on February 7, 1870, in Rudolfsheim, a village near
Vienna.

• His mother, Pauline, was a hard-working homemaker who kept

busy with her seven children. His father, Leopold, was a middle-
class Jewish grain merchant from Hungary.

• Third child of seven

Biography of • As a young boy, Adler was weak and sickly at age 5, he nearly died
of pneumonia.

Alfred Adler • Adler awoke one morning to find his brother Rudolph died in the
bed next to his.

• He decided that his goal in life would be to conquer death. And at

an early age, he decided to become a physician.

• Adler felt emotionally attached to Freud’s parents, especially his

mother. In contrast, Adler was more interested in social
relationships, and his siblings and peers played a pivotal role in his
childhood development.
 • Personality differences between Freud and Adler continued
throughout childhood, Freud preferring intense one-on-one
relationships and Adler feeling more comfortable in group
situations.

• Received his medical degree near the end of 1895, then he

realized his childhood goal of becoming a physician.

• Because his father had been born in Hungary, Adler was a

Biography of Hungarian citizen and was thus obliged to serve military duty in
the Hungarian army. He fulfilled that obligation immediately after

Alfred Adler receiving his medical degree and returned to Vienna for
postgraduate study.

• In the late fall of 1902, Freud invited Adler and three other
Viennese Physicians to attend and discuss psychology and
neuropathology. The group was known Wednesday Psychological
Society until 1908, it became the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society.
 • Adler’s views changed and he began to criticize Freud’s theories

• In 1911, Adler and nine others broke away from Freud and formed
“ The Society for Individual Psychology”.

• Involvement in WW1 helped develop the concept of social

interest.

• Adler Married a fiercely Russian woman, Raissa Epstein in

Biography of December 1897 and had four children. Alexandra and Kurt
continued their father’s work; Valentine(Vali) who died as a

Alfred Adler political prisoner of the Soviet Union in 1942, and Cornelia(Nelly),
who aspires to be an actress.

• On May 23, 1937, in Aberdeen, Scotland, he died of a heart attack.

On hearing about Adler’s death Freud sarcastically remarked “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 rewarded him richly for his service in having
contradicted psychoanalysis.”
 Adlerian Theory of Personality
• Also known as Individual Psychology. The main motives of human thought and behavior
are individual man’s striving for superiority and power, partly in compensation for his feeling of inferiority.
Every individual, in this view, is unique, and his personality structure—including his unique goal and ways of
striving for it—finds expression in his style of life, this lifestyle being the product of his own creativity.

• This theory is also based on the importance of having a sense of community. According to Adler, individuals
who feel that they belong will act cooperatively and form healthy, loving bonds with others. But those who feel
like outcasts will act out to express that feeling of inadequacy.

• Alfred Adler believed that behaviors were based on the individual’s experiences and environmental and societal
factors. Personality was determined by the confrontation of love-related, vocational, and societal forces. Adler
believed that every person was unique and none of the previous theories could be applied to every single
person. It is for this reason that Adler called his theory “Individual Psychology.”
 • The first tenet of Adlerian theory is “The one dynamic force
behind people’s behavior is the striving for success or superiority.”

• A single “drive” or motivating force lies behind all our behavior

Striving for and experience.

Success or • Adler called the motivating force the striving for perfection.

• Striving for perfection is similar to the more popular idea of

Superiority self-actualization.

• Striving for perfection was not the first phrase Adler used to
refer to his single motivating force. His earliest phrase was the
aggression drive. The reaction when other drives are
frustrated.
 • Masculine protest which implies will to power or domination of
others. In many cultures, boys are often held in higher esteem
than girls.

Striving for • Men’s assertiveness and success in the world are not due to
some innate superiority. Rather boys are encouraged to be

Success or
assertive in life and girls are discouraged.

• His final theory is called single dynamic force striving for

Superiority superiority. Superiority refers to the desire to be better, it also

contains the idea that people want to be better than others,
rather than better in their own right.

• Adler later tended to use striving for superiority more in

reference to unhealthy or neurotic striving.
 • The second tenet is “People’s subjective perceptions shape their
behavior and personality.”

• Fictionalism is the goal of superiority or success, a goal we

created early in life that may not be clearly understood. Adler’s
ideas on fictionalism originated with Hans Vaihinger’s book
The Philosophy of “As If” and it believes that fiction is ideas
Subjective that have no real existence, yet they influence people as if they
really existed. For example, “Humans have a free will that

Perceptions enables them to make choices.”

• Adler’s emphasis on fiction is consistent with his strongly held

teleological motivation. Teleology is an explanation of
behavior in terms of its final purpose or aim.

• Teleology is usually concerned with future goals or ends,

whereas causality ordinarily deals with past experiences that
produce some present effect.
 • The third tenet of Adlerian theory is “Personality is unified and
self-consistent.”

Unity and
• Adler wished to stress his belief that each person is unique and
indivisible. Thus, individual psychology insists on the
fundamental unity of personality and the notion that
Self- inconsistent behavior does not exist.

Consistency of • Organ Dialect is one of Adler’s several ways in which the entire
person operates with unity and self-consistency and an

Personality
example of unified personality. According to Adler, the whole
person strives in a self-consistent fashion toward a single goal,
and all separate actions and functions can be understood only
as parts of this goal.

• Adler’s example of Organ Dialect is the case of a very obedient

boy who wet the bed at night to send a message that he does
not wish to obey parental wishes.
 • Second example of a Unified Personality is the harmony
between Conscious and Unconscious actions. Adler defined the
Unconscious as that part of the goal that is neither clearly

Unity and
formulated nor completely understood by the individual. While
Conscious thoughts are those that are understood and
regarded by the individual as helpful in striving for success.
Self-
Consistency of
Personality
 • The fourth tenet is “The value of all human activity must be seen
from the viewpoint of social interest.”

• Social Interest is Adler’s misleading translation of his original

German term. Gemeinschaftsgefühl which means social
feeling or community feeling. But gemeinschaftsgefühl

Social actually has a meaning that is not fully expressed by any

English word or phrase. It means a feeling of oneness with all

Interest
humanity, and it implies membership in the social community
of all people.

• Social interest can be defined as an attitude of relatedness

with humanity in general as well as an empathy for each
member of the human community. It is also the natural
condition of the human species and the adhesive that binds
society together.
 • Social interest is based on an innate disposition, but it has to
be nurtured to survive. One understanding Adler wanted to
avoid was the idea that social interest was somehow another
version of extraversion.
Social • Adler meant social interest in the broad sense of caring for

Interest family, for community, for society, for humanity, and even for
life. And a matter of being useful to others.

• Social failures end up terribly unfulfilled, badly imperfect, and

far from self-actualized because they lack interest and are too
self-interested.
 Social
Interest
 • Adler’s fifth tenet is “The self-consistent personality structure
develops into a person’s style of life.”

• Style of life is the term Adler used to refer to the flavor of a

person’s life. It includes a person’s goal, self-concept, feelings

Style of Life for others, and attitude toward the world. It is the product of
the interaction of heredity, environment, and a person’s
creative power.
 • The Final tenet of Adlerian Theory is “Style of life is molded by
people’s creative power.”

• Each person, Adler believed, is empowered with the freedom

Creative to create her or his style of life. All people are responsible for
who they are and how they behave.

Power • Adler acknowledged the importance of heredity and the

environment in forming personality. Except for identical twins,
every child is born with a unique genetic makeup and soon
comes to have social experiences different from those of any
other human.
Individual Psychology
According to Birth
Order Characteristics
 • According to Adler, firstborn children are more likely to have
intensified feelings of power and superiority, high anxiety, and
overprotective tendencies.

• The first child begins life as an only child with all the family’s

Firstborn
attention to themselves. However, the second child arrives and
“dethrones” the firstborn.

Children • Firstborn children often battle for their lost position. Some
become disobedient and rebellious, others sullen and withdrawn.
According to Adler first children are more likely than any other to
become problem children.

• They tend to be relatively solitary and more conservative than the

other children in the family.
 • According to Adler, second-born children begin life in a better
situation for developing cooperation and social interest.

Second-born • The personalities of second-born children are shaped by their

Children/
perception of the older child’s attitude toward them.

• Second child they tend to become quite competitive, constantly

Middle Child trying to surpass the older child. They often succeed, but many
feel as if the race is never done, and they tend to dream of
constant running without getting anywhere.
 • It’s a stereotype that if you're a middle child you're a peacekeeper,

Second-born but there seems to be a grain of truth behind the saying. Because
you lack the title of being the oldest or the youngest, you seek to
carve out a niche for yourself in the family dynamic. You tend to
Children/ enjoy negotiation and compromise. You can often relate to people
of different ages with ease.

Middle Child • Since the first child is more likely to receive more responsibilities,
and the youngest child is more likely to be pampered, this leaves
the middle child with no clear role or status within the family.
 • Adler believed the youngest are often most pampered and,
consequently, run a high risk of being problem children. They are
likely to have a strong feeling of inferiority and lack a sense of
independence. Nevertheless, they possess many advantages.
Youngest They are often highly motivated to exceed other siblings.

Children • As the baby of the family, you tend to take one of two paths when
developing your personality, according to Adler. The first path is a
clear journey to success, where you try to excel in every way, often
becoming the go-to person in the family. Youngest children can
also become avoidant if they lack the confidence or drive to excel.
 • Adler stated that only children may lack well-developed feelings of
cooperation and social interest, possess a parasitic attitude, and
expect other people to pamper and protect them.

• Only Children are in a unique position of competing, not against

brothers and sisters, but against father and mother. Living in an
Only Child adult world, they often develop an exaggerated sense of
superiority and an inflated self-concept.

• Your parents might be overprotective of you, leading you to

become dependent on your parents for support. You aren’t used
to sharing clothes, space, or parental attention with siblings. This
can make you intelligent and creative, but also stubborn and set in
your ways.
Adler’s View of Some Possible Traits by Birth Order.

Positive Traits Negative Traits

Oldest Child
• Nurturing and protective of others • Highly anxious
• Good Organizer • Exaggerated feelings of power
• Unconscious hostility
• Fights for Acceptance
• Must always be the “right”, whereas
others as always “wrong”
• Highly critical of others
• Uncooperative

Second Child
• Highly motivated • Highly competitive
• Cooperative • Easily discouraged
• Moderately competitive
Adler’s View of Some Possible Traits by Birth Order.

Positive Traits Negative Traits

Youngest Child
• Realistically ambitious • Pampered style of life
• Dependent on others
• Wants to excel in everything
• Unrealistically ambitious

Only Child
• Socially Mature • Exaggerated feelings of superiority
• Low feeling of cooperation
• Inflated sense of self
• Pampered style of life