Adler's Theory

ADLER'S THEORY (Alfred Adler), one of the most significant contemporary directions in characterology and psychotherapy. Alfred Adler, one of the most prominent students of Freud, after diverging in his views (in 1911) from his teacher, created his own theory. Currently, he is often contrasted with Freud as a thinker who complements and corrects the latter. The main idea that determined all of A.'s subsequent medical worldview was expressed by him in his very first work ('On the Inferiority of Organs'). It consists in the fact that in the field of biology, any organ suffering from some deficiency strives to equalize this deficiency by compensating for it with enhanced function. If the organ's own forces are insufficient, the central nervous system takes on the task of producing equalization, artificially stimulating the organ and causing its increased activity, so-called hypercompensation. Thus, for example, the stutterer Demosthenes becomes the greatest orator. In a child, the feeling of inferiority is based not only on the consciousness of a defect in some organ but also stems from his entire position as a weak, offended being. This situation prompts him to strive not only to restore the disturbed equilibrium but also to create a directly opposite relationship: 'now the weakest, I want to be the strongest; subordinate to all, I want to command all'—approximately, this is how his unconscious desires could be expressed. There arises a 'will to power,' aggressive tendencies develop. Taking as an example some personality from the external world that has particularly attracted his attention (father, older brother, teacher, etc.), he endows it with the traits of that ideal hero image to which he must strive. Thus, from childhood, a guiding line of behavior begins to form, and a life plan is created for the personality feeling its inferiority, a plan subordinate to a goal briefly expressed in the words: 'I want to become a man.' This goal is the same for children of both sexes, since in modern, male-oriented culture, a girl experiences a feeling of her own worthlessness not only as a child but also as a woman. A. calls this attitude the 'masculine protest' ('männlicher Protest'). To achieve dominance, the child alternately uses stubbornness, compliance, caprices, obedience, thus changing, as necessary, the forms of his protest. This is how character is formed. A. disagrees with the view that the latter represents something innate and unchangeable, but considers that under it one must understand the sum of properties, abilities, and attitudes formed by the individual both for implementing and for masking his life plan. The adult neurotic, in essence, acts as if he were a weak child forced to submit to a hostile world. His neurosis therefore unfolds as part of his life plan₄, representing not a disease but a way of life that seems to him unconsciously purposeful, against the background of which at a certain moment such acute symptoms¹ as insomnia, palpitations, obsessive ideas, etc., appear. Obstacles force the neurotic to withdraw into himself and retreat from reality, he develops an attitude toward cowardly avoidance of difficulties, which is always countered, however, by an inflated self-esteem. A strange mixture of opposites results—a challenge and timidity—heightened cheerfulness and gloomy depression, etc. From conceit stems the tendency to devalue reality ('Entwertungs-tendenz'), to criticism, to mockery, while weakness is used as an instrument of dominance: by retreating into illness, the neurotic makes himself a martyr, forces others to pay attention to him. In his illness, the neurotic sets himself against society.—Treatment should consist in enlightening the neurotic about the falsity of the life plan unconsciously adopted by him and in cultivating social tendencies in him. (For Adler's school and his followers, see Psychology; literature is also given there.)