Alfred Adler was a Viennese physician who had a great impact on the theories of the human mind. Together with Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung, he closed the circle of the “big three”, that is, the founders of what is now called “deep psychology”.
Adler was born in Vienna, Austria, on 7 February 1870, the second of six siblings, his father was a Jewish cereal merchant and his mother was a housewife, spent his childhood on the outskirts of the Austrian capital. very fragile because he suffered from rickilness and, for once, was hit by a car.
- “Experience is one of the causes of success or failure.
- We’re not impacted by our experiences.
- Called trauma.
- But do we adapt them to our goals?.
- – Alfred Adler-.
One of his brothers died of diphtheria at age 4 and did not get sick, although he slept in the same bed, however, at the age of 5 he contracted a terrible pneumonia that left him marked forever. decision to be a doctor. In addition, he was a normal child distinguished by his extroverted and playful character. I didn’t have much taste for the studio, but on the other hand it was very competitive.
He received his medical degree from the University of Vienna in 1895 and began working as an ophthalmologist. He had contact with visually impaired people and then his ideas about the human mind began to take shape, a little later he moved on to general medicine and there he met circus people, which also influenced his ideas of inferiority and superiority. that I would later develop. He then worked as a neurologist and then as a psychiatrist.
Through his medical practice, Alfred Adler became interested in the phenomena of the human mind, without yet having a clear objective, the young Viennese physician began to collect documents on the physical and psychological consequences of organic deficiencies or limitations. I met Sigmund Freud personally and was very attracted to his ideas.
Freud himself invited him to be part of his nearest circle. Alfred Adler began participating in Freud’s famous conversations, or the “Wednesday Psychological Society,” which would later be called the Vienna Psychoanalyst Association. In 1904 he expressed the first disagreements with Freudian theory, but remained in psychoanalytic society.
In 1910, he began publishing the “Journal of Psychoanalysis” with Freud and Stekel. Adler was the editor. Tensions with Freud’s theory grew and in August 1911 he decided to move away forever from traditional psychoanalysis, he announced it in a magazine editorial he ran.
Alfred Adler shares many of Sigmund Freud’s postulates; in fact, it never wholely de-dealt with them; however, he also had serious scruples about certain accents and approaches of the father of psychoanalysis, basically showing a discrepancy in two main points:
Unlike Freud, Adler believed that the fundamental impulse of the human being was the desire for power and not sexual instinct; his reflection was strongly influenced by Nietzsche’s philosophy; he was convinced that the desire for power in humans is just as important or even more important than sexual impulse. He argued that his frustration resulted in an inferiority complex, which eventually became the breeding ground for various psychological disorders.
At the same time, Alfred Adler rejects the idea that early experiences will look at the unconscious and become determinants of psychic life; on the contrary, he greatly valued the individual’s ability to drive and make sense of his own life here and now. .
Adler defined the basis of his theory based on what he had observed in his patients, many of them had a long history of physical limitations, in this regard, he found that while some turned these experiences into sufficient motivation to develop original ways of compensating them. others became trapped in their frustrations and were unable to move forward. From there, Adler attached enormous importance to the human will to get out of trouble.
In 1911, Adler founded the Free Psychoanalyst Society, which in 1912 was renamed the Society of Individual Psychology. The name of individual psychology may seem contradictory because Adler attaches great importance to social factors and the environment in the formation and well-being of people, but I thought that although this social influence was great, it has a different effect on each person, a reasoning similar to the one we used to do with disability.
One of the first concepts postulated by Alfred Adler was that of “compensation”. It is based on the model of ‘constitutional pathology’. And he declares that the body, by itself, offers compensation for any organic failure. This compensation, at first, occurs in the mind, then is transferred to the body. As an ophthalmologist, he himself has noticed that many patients with significant visual impairments have become excellent readers.
The main strength of each individual is the desire for power, according to Adler; however, when this stimulus is thwarted, what appears to be a “inferiority complex”, a neurotic feeling of deficiency or incompetence, derived from experiments and the environment, to compensate for this condition, one?Superiority complex, so that the individual develops perceptions and desires disproportionate by his own person.
In such cases, the cleaning process reveals two options: first, the individual compensates for his sense of inferiority by developing new potential; another, that the individual remains stuck in his sense of inferiority and develops a complex of foolish superiority that leads him to cynicism. , frustration, laziness and even crime.
Alfred Adler’s theories had a big impact in his day, not only gaining great popularity in Europe, but also in the United States, where he was a successful speaker and even a master’s degree at prestigious universities, all despite his books and ideas being banned in his home country and in various parts of Europe , during Nazism.
The emphasis on the individual’s desire and ability to change his destiny had a major impact on later currents, such as humanist psychology, Erich Fromm’s social psychoanalysis and Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy. -helps “psychology.
The fundamental questions of individual psychology were enshrined in the book “The Neurotic Personality”, published in 1912. Other books that bring together Adler’s legacy are “The Practice and Theory of Individual Psychology” (1920); ?Knowledge of man? (1926); ? Understand human nature?(1928-1930); Children’s education? (1929); ?The science of life? (1957); What about superiority and social interest?(1965 work).