Chapter 3 Adler: Individual Psychology

Chapter 3
Adler: Individual Psychology

Learning Objectives

After reading Chapter 3, you should be able to:

1. Distinguish between striving for superiority and striving for

success.

2. Describe the role of subjective perceptions in Adler's theory of

personality.

3. Explain how seemingly contradictory behaviors may reflect a

single goal of striving for superiority.

4. Define social interest and give examples of what it is and what it is

not.

5. Explain organ dialect and give examples of how it is expressed in

a person's behavior.

6. Define causality and teleology and discuss Adler's teleological

approach to personality.

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 Chapter 3 Adler: Individual Psychology

7. Define style of life and discuss various methods of identifying a

person's style of life..

8. List and describe three types of Adlerian safeguarding tendencies.

9. Discuss Adler's ideas on birth order.

10. Compare and contrast Adler's view of women with that of Freud.

11. Summarize recent research on early recollections.

12. Critique Adler's ideas as a scientific theory.

Summary Outline

I. Overview of Adler's Individual Psychology

Adler was an original member of Freud's psychoanalytic group,
but he never saw himself as a disciple or a follower of Freud. If
fact, throughout his life he carried with him the note Freud had
sent to him proposing the establishment of an organization of
physicians. Adler saw the invitation as Freud's recognition of
Adler as an equal. After Adler broke from that group, he built a
theory of personality that was nearly diametrically opposed to
that of Freud. Whereas Freud's view of humanity was

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pessimistic and rooted in biology, Adler's view was optimistic,

idealistic, and rooted in family experiences.
II. Biography of Alfred Adler
Alfred Adler was born in 1870 in a Viennese suburb, a second
son of middle-class Jewish parents. Like Freud, Adler was a
physician, and in 1902, he became a charter member of Freud's
organization. However, personal and professional differences
between the two men led to Adler's departure from the Vienna
Psychoanalytic Society in 1911. Adler soon founded his own
group, the Society for Individual Psychology. Adler's strengths
were his energetic oral presentations and his insightful ability to
understand family dynamics. He was not a gifted writer, a
limitation that may have prevented him from attaining world
recognition equal to that of Freud.
III. Introduction to Adlerian Theory
Although Adler's individual psychology is both complex and
comprehensive, its main tenets can be stated in simple form.
IV. Striving for Success or Superiority
The sole dynamic force behind people's actions is the striving for
success or superiority.
A. The Final Goal
The final goal of success or superiority toward which all people
strive unifies personality and makes all behavior meaningful.
B. The Striving Force as Compensation
Because people are born with small, inferior bodies, they feel
inferior and attempt to overcome these feelings through their

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natural tendency to move toward completion. The striving force

can take one of two courses—personal gain (superiority) or
community benefit (success).
C. Striving for Personal Superiority
Psychologically unhealthy individuals strive for personal
superiority with little concern for other people. Although they
may appear to be interested in other people, their basic
motivation is personal benefit.
D. Striving for Success
In contrast, psychologically healthy people strive for the success
of all humanity, but they do so without losing their personal
identity.
V. Subjective Perceptions
People's subjective view of the world—not reality—shapes their
behavior.
A. Fictionalism
Fictions are people's expectations of the future. Adler held that
fictions guide behavior, because people act as if these fictions
are true. Adler emphasized teleology over causality, or
explanations of behavior in terms of future goals rather than past
causes.
B. Physical Inferiorities
Adler believed that all humans are "blessed" with physical
inferiorities, which stimulate subjective feelings of inferiority
and move people toward perfection or completion.
VI. Unity and Self-Consistency of Personality

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Adler believed that all behaviors are directed toward a single

purpose. When seen in the light of that sole purpose, seemingly
contradictory behaviors can be seen as operating in a self-
consistent manner.
A. Organ Dialect
People often use a physical disorder to express style of life, a
condition Adler called organ dialect, or organ jargon.
B. Conscious and Unconscious
Conscious and unconscious processes are unified and operate to
achieve a single goal. The part of our goal that is not clearly
understood is unconscious; that part of our goal we fail to fully
comprehend is conscious.
VII. Social Interest
Human behavior has value to the extent that it is motivated by
social interest, that is, a feeling of oneness with all of humanity.
A. Origins of Social Interest
Although social interest exists as potentiality in all people, it
must be fostered in a social environment. Adler believed that the
parent-child relationship can be so strong that it negates the
effects of heredity.
B. Importance of Social Interest
According to Adler, social interest is "the sole criterion of human
values," and the worthiness of all one's actions must be seen by
this standard. Without social interest, societies could not exist;
individuals in antiquity could not have survived without
cooperating with others to protect themselves from danger. Even

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today an infant's helplessness predisposes it toward a nurturing

person.
VIII. Style of Life
The manner of a person's striving is called style of life, a pattern
that is relatively well set by 4 or 5 years of age. However, Adler
believed that healthy individuals are marked by flexible behavior
and that they have some limited ability to change their style of
life.
IX. Creative Power
Style of life is partially a product of heredity and environment—
the building blocks of personality—but ultimately style of life is
shaped by people's creative power, that is, by their ability to
freely choose a course of action.
X. Abnormal Development
Creative power is not limited to healthy people; unhealthy
individuals also create their own personalities. Thus, each of us
is free to choose either a useful or a useless style of life.
A. General Description
The most important factor in abnormal development is lack of
social interest. In addition, people with a useless style of life
tend to (1) set their goals too high, (2) have a dogmatic style of
life, and (3) live in their own private world.
B. External Factors in Maladjustment
Adler listed three factors that relate to abnormal development:
(1) exaggerated physical defects, which do not by themselves
cause abnormal development, but which may contribute to it by

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generating subjective and exaggerated feelings of inferiority; (2)

a pampered style of life, which contributes to an overriding
drive to establish a permanent parasitic relationship with the
mother or a mother substitute; and (3) a neglected style of life,
which leads to distrust of other people.
C. Safeguarding Tendencies
Both normal and neurotic people create symptoms as a means of
protecting their fragile self-esteem. These safeguarding
tendencies maintain a neurotic life style and protect a person
from public disgrace. The three principal safeguarding
tendencies are (1) excuses, which allow people to preserve their
inflated sense of personal worth; (2) aggression, which may take
the form of depreciating others' accomplishments, accusing
others of being responsible for one's own failures, or self-
accusation; and (3) withdrawal, which can be expressed by
psychologically moving backward, standing still, hesitating,
or constructing obstacles
D. Masculine Protest
Both men and women sometimes overemphasize the
desirability of being manly, a condition Adler called the
masculine protest. The frequently found inferior status of
women is not based on physiology but on historical
developments and social learning. Boys are often taught early
that being masculine means being courageous, strong, and
dominant. The ultimate accomplishment for boys is to win, to
be powerful, to be on top. In contrast, girls often learn to be

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passive and to accept an inferior position in society. In contrast

to Adler's more democratic attitude, Freud believed that
anatomy is destiny and that women occupy the 'dark continent"
of psychology. Near the end of his life, Freud was still asking
what women wanted. According to Adler, Freud's attitudes
toward women would be evidence of a person with a strong
masculine protest. In contrast to Freud's views on women,
Adler assumed that women—because they have the same
physiological and psychological needs as men—want more or
less the same things that men want.
XI. Applications of Individual Psychology
Adler applied the principles of individual psychology to family
constellation, early recollections, dreams, and psychotherapy.
A. Family Constellation
Adler believed that people's perception of how they fit into their
family is related to their style of life. He claimed that firstborns
are likely to have strong feelings of power and superiority, to be
overprotective, and to have more than their share of anxiety.
Secondborn children (such as Adler) are likely to have strong
social interest, provided they do not get trapped trying to
overcome their older sibling. Youngest children are likely to be
pampered and to lack independence, whereas only children have
some of the characteristics of both the oldest and the youngest
child.
B. Early Recollections

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A more reliable method of determining style of life is to ask

people for their earliest recollections. Adler believed that early
memories are templates on which people project their current
style of life. These recollections need not be accurate accounts
of early event, but true or false, they have psychological
importance because they reflect a person's current view of the
world.
C. Dreams
Adler believed that dreams can provide clues to solving future
problems. However, dreams are disguised to deceive the
dreamer and usually must be interpreted by another person.
D. Psychotherapy
The goal of Adlerian therapy is to create a relationship between
therapist and patient that fosters social interest. To ensure that
the patient's social interest will eventually generalize to other
relationships, the therapist adopts both a maternal and a paternal
role.
XII. Related Research
Although family constellation and birth order have been widely
researched, topics more pertinent to Adlerian theory are early
recollections and career choice. For example, research by Jon
Kasler and Ofra Nevo (2005) found that early childhood
recollections did match career types in adulthood, which is
consistent with Adler’s view.
Adler’s theory of inferiority, superiority, and social feeling can
be applied to health-related behaviors such as eating disorders

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and binge drinking. For example, Susan Belangee (2006) found

that dieting, overeating, and bulimia are unhealthy ways of
compensating for feelings of inferiority. Moreover, eating
disorders suggest that a person’s Gemeinschaftsgefühl or social
feeling is out of whack. Recently, Teresa Laird and Andrea
Shelton (2006) examined binge drinking and birth order among
college students. They found youngest children in a family
significantly more likely to binge drink than older children. The
researchers explained this using Adlerian theory, in that
youngest children are more likely to be dependent, and
dependent people are more likely to cope with stress by heavy
drinking.
Some evidence exists that early recollections change through the
course of counseling. For example, Gary Savill and Daniel
Eckstein (1987) found significant changes in both mental status
and early recollections for a therapy group, but not for people in
a control group. Similarly, Jane Statton and Bobbie Wilborn
(1991) found that recollections of preadolescent children
changed after receiving therapy, whereas those of a control
group did not. These results tend to support Adler’s teleological
approach to personality, in that early childhood experiences are
less important than adults’ views of those experiences.
XIII. Critique of Adlerian Theory
Individual psychology rates high on it ability to generate
research, organize data, and guide the practitioner. It receives a
moderate rating on parsimony, but because it lacks operational

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definitions, it rates low on internal consistency. It also rates low

on falsification because many of its related research findings can
be explained by other theories.
XIV. Concept of Humanity
Adler saw people as forward moving, social animals who are
motivated by goals they set (both consciously and
unconsciously) for the future. People are ultimately responsible
for their own unique style of life. Thus, Adler's theory rates high
on free-choice, social influences, and uniqueness; very high on
optimism and teleology; and average on unconscious influences.

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