Alfred Adler

Alfred Adler was born on February 7, 1870[7] at Mariahilfer Straße 208[8] in Rudolfsheim, a village on the western fringes of Vienna, a modern part of Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus, the 15th district of the city. He was second of the seven children of a Jewish couple, Pauline (Beer) and Leopold Adler. Leopold Adler was a Hungarian-born grain merchant.[9][10][11] Alfred's younger brother died in the bed next to him when Alfred was only three years old,[12] and throughout his childhood, he maintained a rivalry with his older brother.[7] This rivalry was spurred on because Adler believed his mother preferred his brother over him. Despite his good relationship with his father, he still struggled with feelings of inferiority in his relationship with his mother.[7]

Alfred was an active, popular child and an average student who was also known for the competitive attitude toward his older brother, Sigmund. Early on, he developed rickets, which kept Alfred from walking until he was four years old. At the age of four, he developed pneumonia and heard a doctor say to his father, "Your boy is lost". Along with being run over twice and witnessing his younger brother's death, this sickness contributed to his overall fear of death.[7] At that point, he decided to be a physician.[13] He was very interested in the subjects of psychology, sociology and philosophy.[14] After studying at University of Vienna, he specialized as an eye doctor, and later in neurology and psychiatry.[14]

Adler began his medical career as an ophthalmologist, but he soon switched to general practice, and established his office in a less affluent part of Vienna across from the Prater, a combination of amusement park and circus. His clients included circus people, and it has been suggested[13] that the unusual strengths and weaknesses of the performers led to his insights into "organ inferiorities" and "compensation".

In his early career, Adler wrote an article in the defense of Freud's theory after reading one of Freud's most well known works, The Interpretation of Dreams.[7] In 1902, because of his defense article, Adler received an invitation from Sigmund Freud to join an informal discussion group that included Rudolf Reitler and Wilhelm Stekel. The group, the "Wednesday Society" (Mittwochsgesellschaft), met regularly on Wednesday evenings at Freud's home and was the beginning of the psychoanalytic movement, expanding over time to include many more members. Each week a member would present a paper and after a short break of coffee and cakes, the group would discuss it. The main members were Otto Rank, Max Eitingon, Wilhelm Stekel, Karl Abraham, Hanns Sachs, Fritz Wittels, Max Graf, and Sandor Ferenczi. In 1908, Adler presented his paper, "The aggressive instinct in life and in neurosis", at a time when Freud believed that early sexual development was the primary determinant of the making of character, with which Adler took issue. Adler proposed that the sexual and aggressive drives were "two originally separate instincts which merge later on". Freud at the time disagreed with this idea.

When Freud in 1920 proposed his dual instinct theory of libido and aggressive drives in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, without citing Adler, he was reproached that Adler had proposed the aggressive drive in his 1908 paper (Eissler, 1971). Freud later commented in a 1923 footnote he added to the Little Hans case that, "I have myself been obliged to assert the existence of an aggressive instinct" (1909, p. 140, 2), while pointing out that his conception of an aggressive drive differs from that of Adler. A long-serving member of the group, he made many more beyond this 1908 pivotal contribution to the group, and Adler became president of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society eight years later (1910). He remained a member of the Society until 1911, when he and a group of his supporters formally disengaged from Freud's circle, the first of the great dissenters from orthodox psychoanalysis (preceding Carl Jung's split in 1914).[15]

This departure suited both Freud and Adler, since they had grown to dislike each other. During his association with Freud, Adler frequently maintained his own ideas which often diverged from Freud's. While Adler is often referred to as "a pupil of Freud", in fact this was never true; they were colleagues, Freud referring to him in print in 1909 as "My colleague Dr Alfred Adler".[16] The association of Adler and Freud lasted a total of 9 years, and they never saw each other after the separation. Freud continued to dislike Adler even after the separation and tended to do so with other defectors from psychoanalysis.[7] Even after Adler's death, Freud maintained his distaste for him. When conversing with a colleague over the matter, he stated, "I don't understand your sympathy for Adler. For a Jewish 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."[7] In 1929 Adler showed a reporter with the New York Herald a copy of the faded postcard that Freud had sent him in 1902. He wanted to prove that he had never been a disciple of Freud's but rather that Freud had sought him out to share his ideas.

Adler founded the Society for Individual Psychology in 1912[17] after his break from the psychoanalytic movement. Adler's group initially included some orthodox Nietzschean adherents (who believed that Adler's ideas on power and inferiority were closer to Nietzsche than Freud's). Their enmity aside, Adler retained a lifelong admiration for Freud's ideas on dreams and credited him with creating a scientific approach to their clinical utilization (Fiebert, 1997). Nevertheless, even regarding dream interpretation, Adler had his own theoretical and clinical approach. The primary differences between Adler and Freud centered on Adler's contention that the social realm (exteriority) is as important to psychology as is the internal realm (interiority). The dynamics of power and compensation extend beyond sexuality, and gender and politics can be as important as libido. Moreover, Freud did not share Adler's socialist beliefs, the latter's wife being for example an intimate friend of many of the Russian Marxists such as Leon Trotsky.[18]

Following Adler's break from Freud, he enjoyed considerable success and celebrity in building an independent school of psychotherapy and a unique personality theory. He traveled and lectured for a period of 25 years promoting his socially oriented approach. His intent was to build a movement that would rival, even supplant, others in psychology by arguing for the holistic integrity of psychological well-being with that of social equality. Adler's efforts were halted by World War I, during which he served as a doctor with the Austro-Hungarian Army. After the conclusion of the war, his influence increased greatly. In the 1920s, he established a number of child guidance clinics. From 1921 onwards, he was a frequent lecturer in Europe and the United States, becoming a visiting professor at Columbia University in 1927. His clinical treatment methods for adults were aimed at uncovering the hidden purpose of symptoms using the therapeutic functions of insight and meaning.

Adler was concerned with the overcoming of the superiority/inferiority dynamic and was one of the first psychotherapists to discard the analytic couch in favor of two chairs. This allows the clinician and patient to sit together more or less as equals.[19] Clinically, Adler's methods are not limited to treatment after-the-fact but extend to the realm of prevention by preempting future problems in the child. Prevention strategies include encouraging and promoting social interest, belonging, and a cultural shift within families and communities that leads to the eradication of pampering and neglect (especially corporal punishment). Adler's popularity was related to the comparative optimism and comprehensibility of his ideas. He often wrote for the lay public. Adler always retained a pragmatic approach that was task-oriented. These "Life tasks" are occupation/work, society/friendship, and love/sexuality. Their success depends on cooperation. The tasks of life are not to be considered in isolation since, as Adler famously commented, "they all throw cross-lights on one another".[20]

In his bestselling book, Man's Search for Meaning, Dr. Viktor E. Frankl compared his own "Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy" (after Freud's and Adler's schools) to Adler's analysis:

According to logotherapy, the striving to find a meaning in one's life is the primary motivational force in man. That is why I speak of a will to meaning in contrast to the "pleasure principle" (or, as we could also term it, the will to pleasure) on which Freudian psychoanalysis is centered, as well as in contrast to the will to power on which Adlerian psychology, using the term "striving for superiority," is focused.[21]

In the early 1930s, after most of Adler's Austrian clinics had been closed due to his Jewish heritage (despite his conversion to Christianity), Adler left Austria for a professorship at the Long Island College of Medicine in the US. Adler died from a heart attack in 1937 in Aberdeen, Scotland, during a lecture tour. (His remains went missing and were unaccounted for until 2007.)[22] His death was a temporary blow to the influence of his ideas, although a number of them were subsequently taken up by neo-Freudians. Through the work of Rudolf Dreikurs in the United States and many other adherents worldwide, Adlerian ideas and approaches remain strong and viable more than 80 years after Adler's death.

Around the world there are various organizations promoting Adler's orientation towards mental and social well-being. These include the International Committee of Adlerian Summer Schools and Institutes (ICASSI), the North American Society of Adlerian Psychology (NASAP) and the International Association for Individual Psychology. Teaching institutes and programs exist in Austria, Canada, England, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Switzerland, the United States, Jamaica, Peru, and Wales.

Adler was influenced by the mental construct ideas of the philosopher Hans Vaihinger (The Philosophy of 'As if') and the literature of Dostoyevsky. While still a member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society he developed a theory of organic inferiority and compensation that was the prototype for his later turn to phenomenology and the development of his famous concept, the inferiority complex.

Adler was also influenced by the philosophies of Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Rudolf Virchow and the statesman Jan Smuts (who coined the term "holism"). Adler's School, known as "Individual Psychology"—an arcane reference to the Latin individuals meaning indivisibility, a term intended to emphasize holism—is both a social and community psychology as well as a depth psychology. Adler was an early advocate in psychology for prevention and emphasized the training of parents, teachers, social workers and so on in democratic approaches that allow a child to exercise their power through reasoned decision making whilst co-operating with others. He was a social idealist, and was known as a socialist in his early years of association with psychoanalysis (1902–1911).[23]

Adler was pragmatic and believed that lay people could make practical use of the insights of psychology. Adler was also an early supporter of feminism in psychology and the social world, believing that feelings of superiority and inferiority were often gendered and expressed symptomatically in characteristic masculine and feminine styles. These styles could form the basis of psychic compensation and lead to mental health difficulties. Adler also spoke of "safeguarding tendencies" and neurotic behavior[24] long before Anna Freud wrote about the same phenomena in her book The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense.

Adlerian-based scholarly, clinical and social practices focus on the following topics:[25]

• Social interest and community feeling
• Holism and the creative self
• Fictional finalism, teleology, and goal constructs
• Psychological and social encouragement
• Inferiority, superiority and compensation
• Life style/style of life
• Early recollections (a projective technique)
• Family constellation and birth order
• Life tasks and social embeddedness
• The conscious and unconscious realms
• Private logic and common sense (based in part on Kant's "sensus communis")
• Symptoms and neurosis
• Safeguarding behavior
• Guilt and guilt feelings
• Socratic questioning
• Dream interpretation
• Child and adolescent psychology
• Democratic approaches to parenting and families
• Adlerian approaches to classroom management
• Leadership and organizational psychology

Adler created Adlerian Therapy, because he believed that one's psyche should be studied in the context of that person's environment.[26]

Adler died suddenly in Aberdeen, Scotland, in May 1937, during a three-week visit to the University of Aberdeen. While walking down the street, he was seen to collapse and lie motionless on the pavement. As a man ran over to him and loosened his collar, Adler mumbled "Kurt", the name of his son, and died. The autopsy performed determined his death was caused by a degeneration of the heart muscle.[47] His body was cremated at Warriston Crematorium in Edinburgh but the ashes were never reclaimed. In 2007, his ashes were rediscovered in a casket at Warriston Crematorium and returned to Vienna for burial in 2011.[48]

Much of Adler's theories have been absorbed into modern psychology without attribution. Psychohistorian Henri F. Ellenberger writes, "It would not be easy to find another author from which so much has been borrowed on all sides without acknowledgement than Alfred Adler." Ellenberger posits several theories for "the discrepancy between greatness of achievement, massive rejection of person and work, and wide-scale, quiet plagiarism..." These include Adler's "imperfect" style of writing and demeanor, his "capacity to create a new obviousness," and his lack of a large and well organized following.[49]

In collaboration with Sigmund Freud and a small group of Freud's colleagues, Adler was among the co-founders of the psychoanalytic movement and a core member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society: indeed, to Freud he was "the only personality there".[50] He was the first major figure to break away from psychoanalysis to form an independent school of psychotherapy and personality theory,[51] which he called individual psychology because he believed a human to be an indivisible whole, an individuum. He also imagined a person to be connected or associated with the surrounding world.[14]

This was after Freud declared Adler's ideas as too contrary, leading to an ultimatum to all members of the Society (which Freud had shepherded) to drop Adler or be expelled, disavowing the right to dissent (Makari, 2008). Nevertheless, Freud always took Adler's ideas seriously, calling them "honorable errors".[52] Following this split, Adler would come to have an enormous, independent effect on the disciplines of counseling and psychotherapy as they developed over the course of the 20th century (Ellenberger, 1970). He influenced notable figures in subsequent schools of psychotherapy such as Rollo May, Viktor Frankl, Abraham Maslow and Albert Ellis.[53] His writings preceded, and were at times surprisingly consistent with, later Neo-Freudian insights such as those evidenced in the works of Otto Rank, Karen Horney, Harry Stack Sullivan and Erich Fromm, some considering that it would take several decades for Freudian ego psychology to catch up with Adler's ground-breaking approach.[54]

Adler emphasized the importance of equality in preventing various forms of psychopathology, and espoused the development of social interest and democratic family structures for raising children.[55] His most famous concept is the inferiority complex which speaks to the problem of self-esteem and its negative effects on human health (e.g. sometimes producing a paradoxical superiority striving). His emphasis on power dynamics is rooted in the philosophy of Nietzsche, whose works were published a few decades before Adler's. Specifically, Adler's conceptualization of the "Will to Power" focuses on the individual's creative power to change for the better.[56] Adler argued for holism, viewing the individual holistically rather than reductively, the latter being the dominant lens for viewing human psychology. Adler was also among the first in psychology to argue in favor of feminism, and the female analyst,[57] making the case that power dynamics between men and women (and associations with masculinity and femininity) are crucial to understanding human psychology (Connell, 1995). Adler is considered, along with Freud and Jung, to be one of the three founding figures of depth psychology, which emphasizes the unconscious and psychodynamics (Ellenberger, 1970; Ehrenwald, 1991). He is also considered by some to be one of the greatest psychologists and philosophers of the twentieth century.[58]

During his college years, he had become attached to a group of socialist students, among which he had found his wife-to-be, Raissa Timofeyewna Epstein, an intellectual and social activist from Russia studying in Vienna. Because Raissa was a militant socialist, she had a large impact on Adler's early publications and ultimately his theory of personality.[7] They married in 1897 and had four children, two of whom, his daughter Alexandra and his son Kurt, became psychiatrists.[59][7] Their children were writer, psychiatrist and Socialist activist Alexandra Adler;[60] psychiatrist Kurt Adler;[61] writer and activist Valentine Adler;[62] and Cornelia "Nelly" Adler.[63] Raissa, Adler's wife, died at 89 in New York City on April 21, 1962.[7]

Author and journalist Margot Adler (1946-2014) was Adler's granddaughter.

The two main characters in the novel Plant Teacher engage in a session of Adlerian lifestyle interpretation, including early memory interpretation.[64]

In the episode Something About Dr. Mary of the television series Frasier, Frasier recalls having to "pass under a dangerously unbalanced portrait of Alfred Adler" during his studies at Harvard.[65]

He appears as a character in the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

Alfred Adler's key publications were The Practice and Theory of Individual Psychology (1924), Understanding Human Nature (1927), & What Life Could Mean to You (1931). Other important publications are The Pattern of Life (1930), The Science of Living (1930), The Neurotic Constitution (1917), The Problems of Neurosis (1930). In his lifetime, Adler published more than 300 books and articles.

The Alfred Adler Institute of Northwestern Washington has recently published a twelve-volume set of The Collected Clinical Works of Alfred Adler, covering his writings from 1898 to 1937. An entirely new translation of Adler's magnum opus, The Neurotic Character, is featured in Volume 1. Volume 12 provides comprehensive overviews of Adler's mature theory and contemporary Adlerian practice.

• Volume 1 : The Neurotic Character — 1907
• Volume 2 : Journal Articles 1898–1909
• Volume 3 : Journal Articles 1910–1913
• Volume 4 : Journal Articles 1914–1920
• Volume 5 : Journal Articles 1921–1926
• Volume 6 : Journal Articles 1927–1931
• Volume 7 : Journal Articles 1931–1937
• Volume 8 : Lectures to Physicians & Medical Students
• Volume 9 : Case Histories
• Volume 10 : Case Readings & Demonstrations
• Volume 11 : Education for Prevention
• Volume 12 : The General System of Individual Psychology

• Adlerian
• Classical Adlerian psychology
• Neo-Adlerian

• Adler, A. (1908). Der Aggressionstrieb im Leben und der Neurose. Fortsch. Med. 26: 577–584.
• Adler, A. (1938). Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind. J. Linton and R. Vaughan (Trans.). London: Faber and Faber Ltd.
• Adler, A. (1956). The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler. H. L. Ansbacher and R. R. Ansbacher (Eds.). New York: Harper Torchbooks.
• Connell, R. W. (1995). Masculinities. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
• Dreikurs, R. & Soltz, V. (1964). Children the Challenge. New York: Hawthorn Books.
• Ehrenwald, J. (1991, 1976). The History of Psychotherapy: From healing magic to encounter. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Inc.
• Eissler, K.R. (1971). Death Drive, Ambivalence, and Narcissism. Psychoanal. St. Child, 26: 25–78.
• Ellenberger, H. (1970). The Discovery of the Unconscious. New York: Basic Books.
• Fiebert, M. S. (1997). In and out of Freud's shadow: A chronology of Adler's relationship with Freud. Individual Psychology, 53(3), 241–269.
• Freud, S. (1909). Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy. Standard Edition of the Works of Sigmund Freud, London: Hogarth Press, Vol. 10, pp. 3–149.
• Gantschacher, H. (ARBOS 2007). Witness and Victim of the Apocalypse, chapter 13 page 12 and chapter 14 page 6.
• King, R. & Shelley, C. (2008). Community Feeling and Social Interest: Adlerian Parallels, Synergy, and Differences with the Field of Community Psychology. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 18, 96–107.
• Manaster, G. J., Painter, G., Deutsch, D., & Overholt, B. J. (Eds.). (1977). Alfred Adler: As We Remember Him. Chicago: North American Society of Adlerian Psychology.
• Orgler, H. (1996). Alfred Adler, 22 (1), pg. 67–68.
• Shelley, C. (Ed.). (1998). Contemporary Perspectives on Psychotherapy and Homosexualities. London: Free Association Books.
• Slavik, S. & King, R. (2007). Adlerian therapeutic strategy. The Canadian Journal of Adlerian Psychology, 37(1), 3–16.

• Phyllis Bottome (1939). Alfred Adler: A Biography. G. P. Putnam's Sons. New York.
• Phyllis Bottome (1939). Alfred Adler: Apostle of Freedom. London: Faber and Faber. 3rd Ed. 1957.
• Carlson, J., Watts, R. E., & Maniacci, M. (2005). Adlerian Therapy: Theory and Practice. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. ISBN 1-59147-285-7.
• Dinkmeyer, D. Sr., & Dreikurs, R. (2000). Encouraging Children to Learn. Philadelphia: Brunner-Routledge. ISBN 1-58391-082-4.
• Rudolf Dreikurs (1935): An Introduction to Individual Psychology. London: Kegan Paul, Trench Trubner & Co. Ltd. (new edition 1983: London & New York: Routledge), ISBN 0-415-21055-0.
• Grey, L. (1998). Alfred Adler: The Forgotten Prophet: A Vision for the 21st Century. Westport, CT: Praeger. ISBN 0-275-96072-2.
• Handlbauer, B. (1998). The Freud-Adler Controversy. Oxford, UK: Oneworld. ISBN 1-85168-127-2.
• Hoffman, E. (1994). The Drive for Self: Alfred Adler and the Founding of Individual Psychology. New York: Addison-Wesley Co. ISBN 0-201-63280-2.
• Lehrer, R. (1999). "Adler and Nietzsche". In: J. Golomb, W. Santaniello, and R. Lehrer. (Eds.). Nietzsche and Depth Psychology. (pp. 229–246). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-4140-7.
• Mosak, H. H. & Di Pietro, R. (2005). Early Recollections: Interpretive Method and Application. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-95287-5.
• Oberst, U. E. and Stewart, A. E. (2003). Adlerian Psychotherapy: An Advanced Approach to Individual Psychology. New York: Brunner-Routledge. ISBN 1-58391-122-7.
• Orgler, H. (1963). Alfred Adler: The Man and His Work: Triumph Over the Inferiority Complex. New York: Liveright.
• Orgler, H. (1996). Alfred Adler, 22 (1), pg. 67–68.
• Josef Rattner (1983): Alfred Adler: Life and Literature. Ungar Pub. Co. ISBN 0-8044-5988-6.
• Slavik, S. & Carlson, J. (Eds.). (2005). Readings in the Theory of Individual Psychology. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-95168-2.
• Manès Sperber (1974). Masks of Loneliness: Alfred Adler in Perspective. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-612950-7.
• Stepansky, P. E. (1983). In Freud's Shadow: Adler in Context. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press. ISBN 0-88163-007-1.
• Watts, R. E. (2003). Adlerian, cognitive, and constructivist therapies: An integrative dialogue. New York: Springer. ISBN 0-8261-1984-0.
• Watts, R. E., & Carlson, J. (1999). Interventions and strategies in counseling and psychotherapy. New York: Accelerated Development/Routledge. ISBN 1-56032-690-5.
• Way, Lewis (1950): Adler's Place in Psychology. London: Allen & Unwin.
• Way, Lewis (1956): Alfred Adler: An Introduction to his Psychology. London: Pelican.
• West, G. K. (1975). Kierkegaard and Adler. Tallahassee: Florida State University.

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• Institutul de Psihologie si Psihoterapie Adleriana Romania
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• Classical Adlerian Psychology according to Alfred Adlers Institutes in San Francisco and Northwestern Washington
• AdlerPedia
• Hong Kong Society of Adlerian Psychology Archived 2020-04-01 at the Wayback Machine
• New Concept Coaching & Training Institute
• Newspaper clippings about Alfred Adler in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW