ALFRED ADLER: Individual Psychology

- Individual psychology rests heavily on the notion of social interest, that is, a feeling of oneness with all
humankind.
- People are motivated mostly by social influences and by their striving for superiority or success.
- People are largely responsible for who they are
- Present behavior is shaped by the people’s view of the future.
- an opposing theory to psychoanalysis

Striving for success or superiority

- 1st tenet: The one dynamic force behind people’s behavior is the striving for success or
superiority
- He reduced all motivation to this single drive.
- Everyone begins with a life of physical
deficiencies that activate feelings of inferiority.
- The striving force serves as a compensation for feelings of inferiority.
- People, by their nature, possess an innate tendency toward completion or wholeness.
Masculine protest – implied will to power or a domination of others. This term was used after Adler
rejected aggression as the single motivational force.
Striving for superiority – limited to those people who strive personal superiority over others
Striving for success – describes actions of people who are motivated by highly developed social
interest.
- Each individual is guided by a final goal regardless of the motivation for striving. It is fictional and has
no objective existence, a product of creative power.
Creative Power – it refers to the people’s ability to freely shape their behavior and create their own
personality.
Inferiority Complex – exaggerated feelings of personal inferiority

Subjective Perceptions
- 2nd tenet: People’s subjective perceptions shape their behavior and personality.
Fictionalism. Striving superiority is shaped by people’s perceptions of reality that is by their fictions, or
expectations of the future.
- Fictionalism is consistent with the teleology.
Unity and Self-Consistency of Personality
- 3rd tenet: Personality is unified and self-consistent.
- Each person is unique and indivisible.
Organ Dialect - The whole person strives in a self-consistent fashion toward a single goal, and all
separate actions and functions can be understood only as parts of this goal. The disturbance of one part
of the body cannot be viewed in isolation; it affects the entire person.

- For Adler, conscious and unconscious are not considered as a dichotomy, but two cooperating parts of
the same unified system. The conscious thoughts are helpful for striving superiority while unconscious is
not helpful.

Social Interest
- 4th tenet: The value of all human activity must be seen from the viewpoint of social interest.
- Social interest means a feeling of oneness with all humanity; it implies membership in the social
community of all people. It can also be defined as an attitude of relatedness with humanity in general as
well as the empathy for each member of the community.
- Social interest was Adler’s yardstick for measuring psychological health and is thus “the sole criterion of
human value”.

Style of Life
- 5th tenet: The self-consistent personality structure develops into a person’s style of life.
Style of life is the term Adler used to refer to the flavor of a person’s life. It includes a person’s goal, self-
concept, feelings for others, and attitude toward the world. It is the product of the interaction of heredity,
environment, and a person’s
creative power.
- Although the final goal is singular, style of life need not be narrow or rigid.
- Three major problems of life: neighborly love, sexual love, and occupation.

Creative Power
6th Tenet: Style of life is molded by people’s creative power.
- Each person is empowered with the freedom to create his or her own style of life. Ultimately, people are
responsible for who they are and how they behave. It makes each person a free individual.
- Each person uses heredity and environment as the bricks and mortar to build personality, but the
architectural design reflects that person’s own style. The building materials of personality are secondary.
We are our own architect and can build either a useful or useless style of life.

Abnormal Development
- For Adler, the one factor underlying all types of maladjustments is underdeveloped social interest.
- Also neurotics tend to:
(1) set their goals too high
(2) live in their own private world
(3) have a rigid and dogmatic style of life

External Factors in Maladjustment

(1) Exaggerated physical deficiencies
(2) Pampered style of life
- the heart of most neuroses
(3) Neglected style of life

Safeguarding Tendencies
- People create patterns of behavior to protect their exaggerated sense of self-esteem against public
disgrace.
- This protective devices enable people to hide their inflated self-image and to maintain their current style
of life.
- These can be compared to Freud’s defense mechanisms, but are largely conscious to shield a person’s
fragile self-esteem.
Three forms:
(1) Excuses – commonly expressed in “Yes, but or If only” format
(2) Aggression – most common safeguarding tendency
Depreciation. The tendency to undervalue other people’s achievements and to overvalue one’s own
(e.g. criticism and gossip).
Accusation. The tendency to blame others for one’s failures and to seek revenge.
Self-accusation. Marked by self-torture and guilt (e.g. masochism, depression, suicide).
(3) Withdrawal – Running away from difficulties or referred to as “safeguarding through distance”

Four Modes:
Moving Backwards. The tendency to safeguard one’s fictional goal of superiority by psychologically
reverting to a more secure period of life. It is designed to elicit sympathy.
Standing Still. They do not move in any direction, thus, they avoid all responsibility by ensuring
themselves against any threats of failure.
Hesitating. In face of difficult problems, some people hesitate or vacillate. (e.g. procrastination)
Constructing Obstacles. The least severe of the withdrawal safeguarding tendencies.

Masculine Protest
- Psychic life of women is essentially the same as that of men and that a male-dominated society is not
natural but rather an artificial product of historical development.
- According to Adler, cultural and social practices—not anatomy—influence many men and women to
overemphasize the importance of being manly.
Applications of Individual Psychology
(1) Family Constellation

(2) Early Recollections

(3) Dreams
Golden rule of dream work in individual psychology: “Everything can be different.”
(4) Psychotherapy
Adlerian theory postulates that psychopathology results from lack of courage, exaggerated feelings of
inferiority, and underdeveloped social interest. Thus, the chief purpose of Adlerian psychotherapy is to
enhance courage, lessen feelings of inferiority, and encourage social interest.

Critique of Adler
- Like that of Freud, produced many concepts that do not easily lend themselves to either verification or
falsification.
- It suffers from a lack of precise operational definitions.
- Individual psychology is somewhat philosophical even moralistic.
- The concept of creative power cannot be scientifically studied.

- high on free choice and optimism, very low on causality, moderate on unconscious influences, and high
on social factors and the uniqueness of individual