Alfred Adler and the inferiority complex

Alfred Adler was an Austrian physician and psychotherapist. He was born in Vienna in 1870 and died in Aberdeen in 1937. He studied medicine at the University of Vienna between 1888 and 1895.

Alfred Adler was interested in pathology, psychology and philosophy. He graduated in 1895. Adler’s importance lies in his connection to the development of psychology, along with Sigmund Freud. He became famous, above all, for his conception of the “inferiority complex” and the “lust for power.” He was founder of the school known as individual psychology.

Adler worked for two years at the Vienna General Hospital and Polyclinic. In 1897 he married Raissa Timofevna Epstein, daughter of a Russian immigrant and close to the communist and feminist movement, a friend of the couple formed by Natalia and Leon Trotsky.

In 1898 he began private practice as an ophthalmologist. He soon abandoned this specialty for general medicine and, later, neurology. He finally opted for psychiatry.

In 1898, at the age of 28, he published his first book, influenced like many others by Marxism and socialism. In this book he criticizes the working conditions of many loom and tailoring workers. He proposed a series of socio-hygienic measures to improve them.

One of its principles was to see man as a totality, as something physical and psychic integrated into an environment rather than as a set of instincts and impulses.. According to his holistic idea, it is easy to see that almost no one can have a desire, such as perfection, without considering their social environment.

Finally, Alfred Adler died on May 28, 1937, due to a stroke. His ideas and theories have become part of the history of psychology and have had great significance. However, today he is criticized for his lack of scientific rigor. Draw your own conclusions.

Alfred Adler’s complicated childhood

Adler’s family environment was positive but his childhood was not free of misfortune. When he was four years old, his younger brother died of diphtheria, while they were both sleeping in the same bed.

Little Alfred also had serious health problems. On one occasion she almost lost her sight due to pneumonia. The doctors had already given her away, but upon hearing the death sentence she was so scared that she “preferred” to recover. Adler also suffered from rickets, a very common disease at that time. In his memories he saw himself immobilized by the bandages that were used as treatment, while his older brother moved effortlessly.

All his biographers highlighted the influence of these childhood experiences for the development of some concepts of his psychological theory.

Adler and his relationship with Freud

Soon Adler came into contact with Freud’s ideas. Ideas that, on the other hand, were ridiculed by several of the most influential doctors of the time. Flattered by his interest, Freud soon invited him to his weekly meetings, where psychoanalytic ideas were discussed.

But Adler’s relationship with Freud was not free of conflicts.. The break came in 1911, when Adler published an article in which he attacked some key concepts of psychoanalysis.

Some Freudian concepts about psychosexual development were explained by Adler in terms of power relations.. Such is the case of the girl’s famous “penis envy.” What the girl envies is not, according to Adler, the boy’s sexual organ. The girl envies the privileges that the people who have it have. After committing such “heresy,” Adler had to leave the Psychoanalytic Society and founded “Individual Psychology.”

“Individual Psychology” and “Sense of Community”

The expression “individual psychology” is unfortunate because it is misleading. Adler’s intention was, in contrast to the Freudian concept of an individual divided into psychic instances, he development of a psychology of the “indivisible” person and not a “psychology of the individual”.

On the contrary, Adler’s psychology is more of a social psychology. He conceives the human being always in relation to other people, to the social community. The key concept of Adlerian psychology is the feeling of community.

To understand what happens to a person you have to examine their relationships with others.. Any human behavior is not understood as something intrapsychic, but as an aspect of that person’s life in relation to others.

Thus, the Feeling of Community is an innate force latent in the human being that has to be awakened and developed in childhood with interaction, and especially with the interaction of children with their parents. This feeling not only implies feeling accepted and belonging, It also means actively contributing to the community.

Overcoming one’s own life problems can never come before the well-being of others. In this sense, The Feeling of Community is a deeply humanistic concept.

The “Feeling of Inferiority” and the “Lish for Power”

According to Adler, the child is born with intrinsically good potential. Instead of feeling accepted, appreciated and loved, the child may become convinced that he or she is worth less than other people.. The factors that induce this way of thinking can be organic or psychological in nature, due to inadequate education on the part of the parents.

Adler highlighted three types of inadequate education:

Too authoritarian education: the child does not feel appreciated and accepted. Too pampering education: the child does not learn respect for others. Overprotective education: the child is raised “in cotton wool.”

All three forms can lead to what is known as a “feeling of inferiority.”

The desire for power

“Lust for power” is also an expression coined by Adler. For this author, far from considering the desire for power as something natural in human beings, It would be the source of all psychological suffering and a psychological manifestation of a person who, deep down, is fighting deep feelings of inferiority.

Since the feeling of inferiority is a painful feeling and difficult to tolerate, humans tend to not only compensate for it, but even overcompensate for it. He who feels excluded wants to include himself, even at the cost of excluding others. He who feels humiliated wants revenge, and he who throughout his childhood has seen his every whim satisfied, as an adult needs slaves at his side to maintain his sense of importance and power.

This is how the desire for power or superiority is born. The desire for power is not something natural in a psychologically stable person.. It is the pathological expression of an individual who deep down feels inferior, excluded, handicapped.

Adler, Erich Fromm and Theodor Adorno

It is curious to observe how several years before the publication of the book “The Fear of Freedom” (1941) by Eric Fromm, Adler related the desire for power to a feeling of inferiority. Fromm argued that man seeks freedom, but when he finds it he feels insecure and shuns it. AND One of the ways to compensate for his insecurity was by subduing others through authority..

On the other hand, Theodor Adorno and his research team published the book “The Authoritarian Personality” in 1950. They postulated that social changes occurred at such a speed that man did not have time to form a well-structured cognitive system. Thus, their security and self-esteem suffered. And what was the solution of the individuals? through authority.

Adler was several years ahead of Fromm and Adorno in placing low self-esteem and self-doubt as the basis for behavior based on the desire for power, or in other words, on authoritarianism.

Psychological illness as a means to escape the feeling of inferiority

For Adler, Neurosis or psychological illness is a way to leave behind the feeling of inferiority. An option that is more conscious than unconscious, contrary to what Freud would think. Furthermore, it would be the logical consequence of a wrong way of life, complete with erroneous opinions and goals in which interest in power would prevail over social interest. Hence the neurotic is a social patient: a person who tries to avoid his obligations to the community.

In this sense, People with neuroses are more obstinate in their habits if they sense that by abandoning them they are entering a danger zone. So it is easier for them to distort their perception of reality than to adapt their thinking patterns to new discoveries. Thus, the individual is not affected by the neurosis, but would be neurotic to the extent that he manages the neurosis and gives him the perfect reason not to respond to his social obligations.

In this sense, for Adler neurosis would also feed on conflict. The one that the person has with his peers and that is born precisely because of the way in which his feelings of inferiority become an inferiority complex, awakening the need to stand out as an individual above social interests.

Bibliography:

Adler, Alfred & Brett, Colin (Comp.) (2003). Understanding life. Barcelona: Paidós Ibérica.

Adler, Alfred (2000). The meaning of life. Madrid: Ahimsa.

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