Alfred Adler

Alfred Adler

 

Alfred Adler ( 7 February 1870 – 28 May 1937) was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of individual psychology. His emphasis on the importance of feelings of inferiority,the inferiority complex, is recognized as an isolating element which plays a key role in personality development. Alfred Adler considered human beings as an individual whole, therefore he called his psychology "Individual Psychology" (Orgler 1976).

Adler was the first to emphasize the importance of the social element in the re-adjustment process of the individual and who carried psychiatry into the community. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Adler as the 67th most eminent psychologist of the 20th century.

Main contributions：


①Adler's approach to personality

Adler's book, Über den nervösen Charakter (The Neurotic Character) defines his earlier key ideas. He argued that human personality could be explained teleologically: parts of the individual's unconscious self ideally work to convert feelings of inferiority to superiority (or rather completeness). The desires of the self ideal were countered by social and ethical demands. If the corrective factors were disregarded and the individual overcompensated, then an inferiority complex would occur, fostering the danger of the individual becoming egocentric, power-hungry and aggressive or worse.

Common therapeutic tools include the use of humor, historical instances, and paradoxical injunctions.
 

② Homosexuality and psychology

Adler's ideas regarding non-heterosexual sexuality and various social forms of deviance have long been controversial. Along with prostitution and criminality, Adler had classified 'homosexuals' as falling among the "failures of life". In 1917, he began his writings on homosexuality with a 52-page magazine, and sporadically published more thoughts throughout the rest of his life.
 

Selected works by Alfred Adler

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

 

 

Reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Adler