Individual psychology

Individual psychology is the personality theory that was developed by Alfred Adler after he broke from Freudian psychoanalytical ideas. Adler emphasized the importance of childhood inferiority feelings and stressed psychosocial rather than psychosexual development.

TYPE OF PSYCHOLOGY: Personality

Introduction

Individual psychology is the name of the school of personality theory and psychotherapy developed by Alfred Adler, a Viennese general-practice physician turned psychiatrist. The term “individual” has a dual implication: It implies uniqueness (each personality exists in a person whose distinctiveness must be appreciated); also, the personality is an indivisible unit that cannot be broken down into separate traits, drives, or habits that could be analyzed as if they had an existence apart from the whole.

The essence of a person’s uniqueness is his or her style of life, a unified system that provides the principles that guide everyday behavior and gives the individual a perspective with which to perceive the self and the world. The style of life is fairly stable after about age six, and it represents the individual’s attempt to explain and cope with the great problem of human existence: the feeling of inferiority.

Role of Inferiority

All people develop a feeling of inferiority. First of all, they are born children in an adult world and realize that they have smaller and weaker bodies, less knowledge, and virtually no privileges. Then people start to compare themselves and realize that there are other people their own age who are better athletes, better scholars, more popular, more artistically talented, wealthier, more socially privileged, more physically attractive, or simply luckier. If one allows the perception of one’s own self-worth to be influenced by such subjective comparisons, then one’s self-esteem will be lowered by an inferiority complex.

Adler believed that since one’s style of life is largely determined early in life, certain childhood conditions make individuals more vulnerable to feelings of inferiority. For example, children born into poverty or into ethnic groups subjected to prejudice may develop a heightened sense of inferiority. Those children with real disabilities (learning or physical disabilities, for example) would also be more susceptible to devaluing their own worth, especially when others are excessively critical or mocking.

Role of Early Family Life

Adler looked inside the family for the most powerful influences on a child’s developing style of life. Parents who treat a child harshly (through physical, verbal, or sexual abuse) would certainly foster feelings of inferiority in that child. Similarly, parents who neglect or abandon their children contribute to the problem. (Adler believed that such children, instead of directing their rage outward against such parents, turn it inward and say, “There must be something wrong with me, or they would not treat me this way.”) Surprisingly, Adler also believed that those parents who pamper their children frustrate the development of positive self-esteem, for such youngsters conclude that they must be very weak and ineffectual to require such constant protection and service. When such pampered children go out into the larger world and are not the recipients of constant attention and favors, their previous training has not prepared them for this; they rapidly develop inferior feelings.

The impact of the family on the formulation of one’s style of life also includes the influence of siblings. Adler was the first to note that a child’s birth order contributes to personality. Oldest children tend to be more serious and success-oriented, because they spend more time with their parents and identify more closely with them. When the younger children come along, the oldest child naturally falls into a leadership role. Youngest children are more likely to have greater social skills and be creative and rebellious. Regardless of birth order, intense sibling rivalries and comparisons can easily damage the esteem of children.

Individual Interpretation of Choice

Adler was not fatalistic in discussing the possible impact on style of life of these congenital and environmental forces; he held that it is neither heredity nor environment that determines personality but rather the way that individuals interpret heredity and environment. They furnish only the building blocks out of which the individual fashions a work of art: the style of life. People have (and make) choices, and this determines their own development; some people, however, have been trained by life to make better choices than others.

All individuals have the capacity to compensate for feelings of inferiority. Many great athletes were frail children and worked hard to develop their physical strength and skills. Great painters overcame weak eyesight; great musicians overcame poor hearing. Given proper encouragement, people are capable of great accomplishments.

Development of Social Interest

The healthy, normal course of development is for individuals to overcome their feelings of inferiority and develop social interest. This involves a feeling of community, or humanistic identification, and a concern with the well-being of others, not only one’s own private feelings. Social interest is reflected in and reinforced by cooperative and constructive interactions with others. It starts in childhood, when the youngster has nurturing and encouraging contacts with parents, teachers, and peers.

Later, the three main pillars of social interest are friends, family, and career. Having friends can help overcome inferiority, because it allows one to be important in the eyes of someone else. Friends share their problems, so one does not feel like the only person who has self-doubt and frustration. Starting one’s own family reduces inferiority feeling in much the same way. One feels loved by spouse and children, and one is very important to them. Having an occupation allows one to develop a sense of mastery and accomplishment and provides some service to others or to society at large. Therefore, those people who have difficulty establishing and maintaining friendships, succeeding as a spouse or parent, or finding a fulfilling career will have less opportunity to develop a healthy social interest and will have a greater susceptibility to lingering feelings of inferiority.

Private Logic

The alternatives to developing social interest as a way of escaping from feelings of inferiority are either to wallow in them or to explain them away with private logic. Private logic is an individual’s techniques for coping with the feeling of inferiority by unconsciously redefining himself or herself in a way not compatible with social interest. Such individuals retreat from meaningful interpersonal relationships and challenging work because it might threaten their precariously balanced self-esteem. Private logic convinces these individuals to seek a sham sense of superiority or notoriety in some way that lacks social interest.

One such approach in private logic is what Adler termed masculine protest (because Western patriarchal culture has encouraged such behavior in men and discouraged it in women). The formula is to be rebellious, defiant, even violent. Underlying all sadism, for example, is an attempt to deny weakness. The gangster wants more than money, the rapist more than sex: they need a feeling of power to cover up an unresolved inferiority feeling. The prostitute wants more than money; she needs to have the power to attract and manipulate men, even though she herself may be totally dependent on her pimp or on drugs.

Use in Child Development Studies

Adler’s theory, like Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis and B. F. Skinner’s radical behaviorism, is a flexible and powerful tool for understanding and guiding human behavior. The first and foremost applications of individual psychology have been in the areas of child rearing, education, and guidance. Because the first six years of life are formative, the contact that children have during this time with parents, teachers, siblings, and peers will influence that child’s later decisions in the direction of social interest or private logic. Adlerians recommend that parents and teachers be firm, fair, and, above all, encouraging. One should tell children that they can overcome their disabilities and praise every progress toward accomplishment and social interest. One should avoid excessive punishments, for this will only convince children that others are against them and that they must withdraw into private logic.

After World War I, the new Social Democratic government of Austria gave Adler the task of developing a system of youth guidance clinics throughout the nation. Each child age six to fourteen was screened, then counseled, if necessary. In the 1920s, the rates of crime and mental disorders among young people declined dramatically.

Use in Elder Studies

A second example of the applicability of Adler’s theory occurs at the other end of the life cycle: old age. Late life is a period in which the incidence of mental disorders, especially depression, increases. This can be understood in terms of diminished opportunity to sustain social interest and increased sources of inferiority feeling.

Recall that social interest has three pillars: career, friends, and family. Traditionally, people retire from work at about age sixty-five. Elders who do not develop satisfying new activities (especially activities that involve a sense of accomplishment and contribution to others) adjust poorly to retirement and tend to become depressed. Old friends die or move into retirement communities. Sometimes it is harder to see and talk with old friends because of the difficulty of driving or using public transportation as one ages, or because one or one’s friends become hard of hearing or experience a stroke that impairs speech. By far the greatest interpersonal loss in later life is the loss of a spouse. When adult children move away in pursuit of their own lives, this may also give an elder the perception of being abandoned.

Conditions that can rekindle old feelings of inferiority abound in later life. Real physical inferiorities arise. The average elder reports at least two of the following chronic conditions: impaired vision, impaired hearing, a heart condition, stroke, or arthritis. The United States is a youth- and body-oriented culture that worships physical attractiveness, not wrinkles and fat. Some elders, especially those who have had the burdens of long-term illness, feel inferior because of their reduced financial resources.

Use in Studying Prejudice

A third area of application is social psychology, especially the study of prejudice. Gordon Allport suggested that those who exhibit racial or religious prejudice are typically people who feel inferior themselves: They are trying to feel better about themselves by feeling superior to someone else. Typically, prejudice against African Americans has been greatest among whites of low socioeconomic status. Prejudice against new immigrants has been greatest among the more poorly skilled domestic workers. Another example of prejudice would be social class distinctions. The middle class feels inferior (in terms of wealth and privilege) to the upper class. Therefore, the middle class responds by using its private logic to demean the justification of wealth: “The rich are rich because their ancestors were robber barons or because they themselves were junk bond traders in the 1980s.” The middle class feels superior to the lower class, however, and again uses private logic to justify and legitimize that class distinction: “The poor are poor because they are lazy and irresponsible.” To solidify its own identity as hardworking and responsible, the middle class develops a perception of the poor that is more derogatory than an objective analysis would permit.

The most telling application of the theory of individual psychology to prejudice occurred in the first part of the twentieth century in Germany. The rise of Nazi anti-Semitism can be associated with the humiliating German defeat in World War I and with the deplorable conditions brought about by hyperinflation and depression. Adolf Hitler first blamed the Jews for the “November treason” that stabbed the German army in the back. (This private logic allowed the German people to believe that their defeated army would have achieved an all-out victory at the front had it not been for the Jewish traitors back in Berlin.) All the problems of capitalism and social inequality were laid at the feet of Jewish financiers, and every fear of rabble-rousing Communists was associated with Jewish radicals. Since everything bad, weak, cowardly, or exploitive was labeled “Jewish,” non-Jewish Germans could believe that they themselves were everything good. The result of the institutionalization of this private logic in the Third Reich led to one of the most blatant examples of masculine protest that humankind has witnessed: World War II and the Holocaust.

Use in Interpersonal Relations

A fourth application is associated with management and sales. Management applies interpersonal relations to subordinates; sales applies interpersonal relations to prospective customers. Adler’s formula for effective interpersonal relations is simple: Do not make the other person feel inferior. Treat workers with respect. Act as if they are intelligent, competent, wise, and motivated. Give subordinates the opportunity and the encouragement to do a good job, so that they can nurture their own social interest by having a feeling of accomplishment and contribution. Mary Kay Ash, the cosmetics magnate, said that she treated each of her employees and distributors as if each were wearing a sign saying “make me feel important.” A similar strategy should apply to customers.

Freud’s Influence

The idea of the inferiority complex bears some similarity to the writings of many previous thinkers. Nineteenth century French psychologist Pierre Janet came closest by developing a theory of perceived insufficiency as a root of all neurosis. American psychologist William James spoke of an innate craving to be appreciated. Adler’s emphasis on the individual’s capacity for compensation (a defense mechanism for overcoming feelings of inferiority by trying harder to excel) and on masculine protest has parallels in the writings of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

Yet the optimistic, simplified, psychosocial approach of Adler can only be understood as a reaction to the pessimistic, esoteric, psychosexual approach of Freud. Adler was a respected general practitioner in Vienna. He heard his first lecture on psychoanalysis in 1899 and was fascinated, although he never regarded himself as a pupil or disciple of Freud. He was invited to join the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and did so in 1902, but he was never psychoanalyzed himself. By the end of the decade, he had become president of the society and editor of its journal. As Adler’s own theories developed, and as he voiced them within the psychoanalytic association, Freud became increasingly defensive.

Adler came to criticize several underpinnings of psychoanalytic theory. For example, he suggested that the Oedipus complex was merely the reaction of a pampered child, not a universal complex. Adler saw dysfunctional sexual attitudes and practices as a symptom of the underlying neurosis, not as its underlying cause. When Adler would not recant his heresy, the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society was split into a Freudian majority and an Adlerian minority. For a brief period, the Adlerians retained the term “psychoanalysis,” only later defining their school as individual psychology.

Freud’s influence on Adler can be seen in the emphasis on the importance of early childhood and on the ideas that the motives that underlie neurosis are outside conscious awareness (private logic) and that it is only through insight into these motives that cure can be attained. It is largely in Adler’s reaction against Freud, however, that Adler truly defined himself. He saw Freud as offering a mechanistic system in which individuals merely react according to instincts and their early childhood environment; Adler believed that individuals have choices about their futures. He saw Freud as emphasizing universal themes that are rigidly repeated in each patient; Adler believed that people fashion their unique styles of life. Adler saw Freud as being focused on the intrapsychic; Adler himself emphasized the interpersonal, social field.

Although Freud’s personality theory has been the best remembered, Adler’s has been the most rediscovered. In the 1940s, holistic theorists such as Kurt Lewin and Kurt Goldstein reiterated Adler’s emphasis on the individual’s subjective and comprehensive approach to perceptions. In the 1960s, humanistic theorists such as Abraham Maslow and Carl R. Rogers rediscovered his emphasis on individuals overcoming the conditions of their childhood and striving toward a self-actualization and potential to love. In the 1980s, cognitive theorists such as Albert Ellis, Aaron T. Beck, and Martin E. P. Seligman emphasized how individuals perceive and understand their situation as the central element underlying psychopathology.

Strengths and Weaknesses

An evaluation of individual psychology must necessarily include some enumeration of its weaknesses as well as its strengths. The positives are obvious: The theory is easy to comprehend, optimistic about human nature, and applicable to the understanding of a wide variety of issues. The weaknesses would be the other side of those very strengths. A theory that is easy to comprehend may be seen as simplistic or merely a reformulation of common sense. This could explain why many theorists "rediscovered" Adler's ideas throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. A theory that is optimistic about human potential might struggle to present a balanced view of human nature. Similarly, a theory that is flexible and broad enough to explain many phenomena may lack the precision needed to explain anything in depth. Although individual psychology fits together as a unified whole, the lines of reasoning are not always clear. Excessive inferiority feelings may preclude the formulation of social interest, or social interest may assuage inferiority feelings. Inferiority feelings might engender private logic, or private logic might sustain inferiority feelings. At different times, Adler and Adlerians seem to argue both sides of these points. The Achilles' heel of individual psychology (and psychoanalysis) is prediction. A child in a situation that heightens feelings of inferiority may overcompensate effectively and develop social interest as an adult, or private logic may take over, potentially manifesting as self-brooding or masculine protest.

In the twenty-first century, those who follow Alderain's psychology focus on encouraging the development of psychologically healthy individuals and families through a holistic and values-based approach.

Bibliography

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