Theories of Personality
Individual Psychology by Alfred Adler
Group 2 (Cetron, Gallego, Guevarra, Saño): BS PSY 2-2
Overview of Individual Psychology
Individual Psychology - presents an optimistic view of people
while resting heavily on the notion of social interest, that is, a
feeling of oneness with all humankind
Difference between the perspective of Freud and Adler
1. Freud reduced all motivation to sex and aggression,
whereas Adler saw people as being motivated mostly by
social influences and by their striving for superiority or
success.
2. Freud assumed that people have little or no choice in
shaping their personality, whereas Adler believed that
people are largely responsible for who they are.
3. Freud’s assumption that present behavior is caused by past
experiences was directly opposed to Adler’s notion that
present behavior is shaped by people’s view of the future
4. Freud, who placed very heavy emphasis on unconscious
components of behavior, Adler believed that psychologically
healthy people are usually aware of what they are doing and
why they are doing it.
Biography of Alfred Adler
• was born on February 7, 1870, in Rudolfsheim, a village
near Vienna
• mother, Pauline, was a hard-working homemaker who kept
busy with her seven children
• father, Leopold, was a middle-class Jewish grain merchant
from Hungary
• Adler was weak and sickly at the age of 5 and almost died
of pneumonia.
• Adler’s poor health was in sharp contrast to the health of his
older brother Sigmund. He always sees his brother as a
rival.
• At age 4, Adler awoke one morning to find Rudolf dead in
the bed next to his. Adler saw this experience, along with
his own near death from pneumonia, as a challenge to
overcome death. At age 5, Adler decided at that early age
to become a physician.
Meeting of Adler and Freud
• Late fall of 1902, Freud invited Adler and three other
Viennese physicians to attend a meeting in Freud’s home
to discuss psychology and neuropathology. This group was
known as the Wednesday Psychological Society until
1908, when it became the Vienna Psychoanalytic
Society. Although Freud led these discussion groups, Adler
never considered Freud to be his mentor and believed
somewhat naively that he and others could make
contributions to psychoanalysis—contributions that would
be acceptable to Freud. Although Adler was one of the
original members of Freud’s inner circle, the two men never
shared a warm personal relationship. Neither man was
quick to recognize theoretical differences even after Adler’s
1907 publication of Study of Organ Inferiority and Its
Psychical Compensation (1907/1917), which assumed
that physical deficiencies—not sex— formed the foundation
for human motivation.
• During the next few years, Adler became even more
convinced that psychoanalysis should be much broader
than Freud’s view of infantile sexuality. In 1911, Adler, who
was then president of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society,
presented his views before the group, expressing
opposition to the strong sexual proclivities of
psychoanalysis and insisting that the drive for superiority
was a more basic motive than sexuality. Both he and Freud
finally recognized that their differences were irreconcilable,
and in October of 1911 Adler resigned his presidency and
membership in the Psychoanalytic Society. Along with nine
other former members of the Freudian circle, he formed the
Society forFree Psychoanalytic Study, a name that
irritated Freud with its implication that Freudian
psychoanalysis was opposed to a free expression of ideas.
Adler, however, soon changed the name of his organization
to the Society for Individual Psychology—a name that
clearly indicated he had abandoned psychoanalysis.
Last Years of His Life in United States
• Adler married a fiercely independent Russian woman,
Raissa Epstein, in December of 1897. Raissa was an early
feminist and much more political than her husband.
• Raissa and Alfred had four children: Alexandra and Kurt,
who became psychiatrists and continued their father’s work;
Valentine (Vali), who died as a political prisoner of the
Soviet Union in about 1942; and Cornelia (Nelly), who
aspired to be an actress.
• He identified himself closely with the common person, and
his manner and appearance were consistent with that
identification. His patients included a high percentage of
people from the lower and middle classes, a rarity among
psychiatrists of his time. His personal qualities included an
optimistic attitude toward the human condition, an intense
competitiveness coupled with friendly congeniality, and a
strong belief in the basic gender equality, which combined
with a willingness to forcefully advocate women’s rights.
• On May 28, 1937, he died of a heart attack. Freud, who was
14 years older than Adler, had outlived his longtime
adversary. On hearing of Adler’s death, Freud (as quoted in
E. Jones, 1957) sarcastically remarked, “For a Jew boy out
of a Viennese suburb a death in Aberdeen is an unheard-of
career in itself and a proof of how far he had got on. The
world really rewarded him richly for his service in having
contradicted psychoanalysis”.
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