9th February 2010
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Adlerian Psychology |
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Alfred Adler: the man and his work
Alfred Adler (1870-1937): a short biography | Basic assumptions of IndividualPsychology | Adlerian Counselling | History of the Adlerian Society
Alfred Adler: a short biography
Alfred Adler was a General Practitioner and a Psychiatrist who lived in Vienna, Austria. In the last eleven years of his life, he devoted most of his time to teaching, lecturing and travelling in England, Scotland, Scandinavia, Germany and the United States, where he eventually settled. He died while on tour in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1937.
As the founder of Individual Psychology, he is amongst the most important figures in 20th Century psychology. (The term Individual Psychology refers to the indivisible nature of the human personality.)
Originally a colleague of Sigmund Freud, Adler resigned from Freud's Psychoanalytic Society in 1911 due to growing differences in their respective theories. In particular, Adler disputed Freud's assertion that sex or libido is the fundamental drive which determines human behaviour. Rather, Adler argued that human beings strive to belong and to overcome early feelings of inferiority through the construction of personal and subjective goals. Adlerians stress the unity of the mind, body and spirit and the interactions between individuals and the larger community.
As the founder of Individual Psychology, he is amongst the most important figures in 20th Century psychology. (The term Individual Psychology refers to the indivisible nature of the human personality.)
Originally a colleague of Sigmund Freud, Adler resigned from Freud's Psychoanalytic Society in 1911 due to growing differences in their respective theories. In particular, Adler disputed Freud's assertion that sex or libido is the fundamental drive which determines human behaviour. Rather, Adler argued that human beings strive to belong and to overcome early feelings of inferiority through the construction of personal and subjective goals. Adlerians stress the unity of the mind, body and spirit and the interactions between individuals and the larger community.
Some key dates
Basic assumptions of Individual Psychology
Individual Psychology is a system of theory and practice built upon psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioural, existential and humanistic principles.
1. All behaviour has social meaning
Adler departed from Freud's assumption that human behaviour is motivated by sexual instinct. Adler's assumption was that human behaviour is motivated by social needs and that human beings are inherently social beings. He substituted an interpersonal relationship mode for the intrapersonal id-ego-superego personality structure of Freud.
Adler offers an optimistic and humanistic view of life that considers human beings as profoundly capable of co-operation in order to live together and strive for self-improvement, self-fulfilment and contribution to the common welfare. Without co-operation, we would annihilate each other. Following from this view of the human condition, Adler based his psychology on the central concept of Gemeinschafts-gefühl, literally meaning 'community feeling' and usually translated as Social Interest.
Adlerian psychology is a social psychology in which the individual is always seen and understood within a social context. Mental health is measured by the degree to which we successfully share with others and are concerned with their welfare.
2. The human personality has unity and guiding themes
The name of Individual Psychology given by Adler to his theory has been a source of misunderstandings in English translations. In German "individual" means indivisible, as its Latin roots indicate. The person is an indivisible unit and needs to be understood as a "total person" in which the thoughts, feelings, actions, dreams, memories, and even physiology, lead in the same direction.
The person is a system in which the whole is greater than and different from its parts. In this whole, Adler saw the unity of the person in whose behaviour there is a consistent theme.
3. Behaviour is a function of our subjective perceptions
How do we develop this guiding theme? It is an active and creative process in which individuals attribute meaning to the life experiences they have faced. They construct out of this raw material the subjective reality to which they respond.
It is not childhood experiences that are crucial. It is our present interpretation of these events.
4. All behaviour is purposeful
Adler maintained that all behaviour is purposeful and goal-directed, although individuals may not always be consciously aware of having such motives. If individuals have capacities that they do not develop or use, this lack of action serves a purpose. Use is more important than possession.
Individuals are not passive victims of heredity or environment (not objects) but active constructors and interpreters of their situations (subjects).
5. The striving for significance explains motivation
Adler found that as a result of its initial helplessness, an infant feels inferior and strives to overcome a feeling of incompletion by striving for a higher level of development. Feeling inferior and compensating for that feeling becomes the dynamic principle of motivation, moving an individual from one of level of development to another. This striving continues throughout life.
The process begins in infancy as children become aware of their inadequacies, especially when comparing themselves to older children and adults. As a result they experience what Adler described as "minus situations". The inferiority feelings become motivation for striving towards what he called "plus situations".
Adler held that individuals were not always guided in their actions by reality but also by fictions. Hence Adler's concept of a final goal, which is a fictional creation, an imagined ideal situation that guides the person in the present. The final goal is the result of a process that is unique to each individual, a process that Adler called private logic.
Without proper support and encouragement in the formative years of their lives, individuals may develop exaggerated feelings of inferiority and a striving towards a goal of imagined superiority, and avoid real tests of themselves. Their final goal would be egocentric, on the useless side of life, rather than a goal of co-operation and a feeling of community. It would reveal self-interest, concern with power, avoidance and withdrawal.
6. The Style of Life
Adler called an individual characteristic approach to life, the style of life, the unique way in which each individual tries to realise their fictional final goal and meets, or avoids, what he called the three main tasks of life: work, community and intimate relationship (love and sex). A life style is formed early in childhood and is unique - no two people develop the same styles. In healthy individuals, dealing with the life tasks is relatively flexible. They can find ways of solving problems and when one way is blocked, they can choose another one but this is not so for the disturbed individuals who usually insist on one way or no way.
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History of the Adlerian Society
Originally compiled by Helen Anderson (1915-2007), Rita Udall (1918-2006), and Paola Prina, one of our current Vice-Presidents.
The first contact Alfred Adler had with the UK was in Oxford, where in 1923 he attended the seventh International Congress of Psychology and gave a lecture in German on Individual Psychology. He returned to Oxford University in 1926 before his first visit to the USA, and again in 1936. Soon after his first visit, a group was formed in London called 'the Gower Street Club of Individual Psychology', which later became known as 'the Adler Society'. Unfortunately this society became tainted with political bias and between 1928 and 1930 its medical members broke away and formed the Medical Society for Individual Psychology.
Adler made a special visit to London in 1931 and removed his name from the former 'Adler Society'. Thanks to the Medical Society and its association with the International Society (now the Association) for Individual Psychology, the Adlerian movement in Great Britain continued to develop. Later on a new group started in London with Adler as its President.
Not long afterwards, on May 28, 1937, Adler died in Aberdeen while on a lecture tour. His daughter Alexandra succeeded him as President. After the war and protracted discussions to find possible ways forward, a new society was eventually formed in the summer of 1952, with Dr Neil Beattie as its Chairman (our current President is his daughter, Dr Lilian Beattie). This was the 'Adlerian Society of Great Britain', now known as the 'Adlerian Society (of the United Kingdom) and Institute for Individual Psychology' (ASIIP).
The society formed in 1952 was linked by affiliation with the 'Medical Society', with Dr Neil Beattie as its Chair. From this time public lectures began to be held in the Friends Meeting House in central London. They took place monthly from October to June - a tradition which continues to the present. Now they are held in the Conway Hall, also in central London, where Adler gave three lectures in 1936.
Around this time, Paul Rom initiated a newsletter. He was its first editor until his death. It was initially produced 'on behalf of the International Association of Individual Psychology'. Later on, the UK society started its own newsletter, which continues to this day with four issues a year. In the late 1940s, a residential weekend began to be held annually. This tradition also continues and since the early 1970s it has been held at St Hilda's College in Oxford.
It took a long time to progress from fostering interest in Adler's work to getting organised training under way. The growth of the Adlerian movement in the UK owes a great deal to the teaching and training of the late Professor Manford Sonstegard (Sonsty). He first addressed the UK Adlerian Society in 1974, and returned to train the following year and subsequent years, later settling in this country, and serving as President of ASIIP until his death in 2009.
Training Courses are now held in London, Cambridge, Aylesbury, Narberth (Wales), Liverpool and Cumbria. There is a one-week Adlerian Summer School held at Green Park in Wendover (Buckinghamshire) in August every year, and Parent and Teacher Education is also underway in many areas. Since 1996, a new journal has been published, the ASIIP Year Book, with an annual issue containing articles from contributors based in Great Britain and from abroad.
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1870 | Adler was born into a middle-class Jewish family; the second of 7 children (5 boys and 2 daughters). He was close to his father but felt in the shadow of his 2-year older brother, Sigmund.
1895 | After receiving a medical degree from the University of Vienna Medical School, Adler set up a private practice in 1898.
1897 | Adler married the Russian socialist-feminist Raissa Epstein, by whom he had three daughters and one son.
1902 | Adler joined Freud's Wednesday Psychological Society (later called the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society).
1904 | Adler converted from Judaism to Protestantism.
1911 | After being expelled from the Society under the impetus of Freud, Adler formed his own group initially called the Society for Free Psychology but renamed in 1913 the Society for Individual Psychology. Although he published numerous articles and books from 1898, he was mostly a practitioner.
1914 | Adler was drafted as a military physician for the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the First World War; after this experience he began to emphasise the importance of Gemeinschaftsgefühl (community feeling) in his teaching and writings.
1922 | Adler began setting up educational teams in child guidance for Vienna's State schools. This psycho-educational movement was suppressed when the fascists took over in Austria in 1934, which was to be annexed by Hitler's Nazi Germany the following year.
1929 | Adler became an adjunct professor at Columbia University and started to shift the base of his operations from Vienna to New York.
1932 | Adler became a Professor at the Long Island College of Medicine, his first full-time academic position in the USA, where he settled. He also toured extensively, giving lectures in and outside the United States.
1937 | During a lecture tour in the UK, Adler died in Aberdeen, Scotland, on 28 May.
Back to the top
1895 | After receiving a medical degree from the University of Vienna Medical School, Adler set up a private practice in 1898.
1897 | Adler married the Russian socialist-feminist Raissa Epstein, by whom he had three daughters and one son.
1902 | Adler joined Freud's Wednesday Psychological Society (later called the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society).
1904 | Adler converted from Judaism to Protestantism.
1911 | After being expelled from the Society under the impetus of Freud, Adler formed his own group initially called the Society for Free Psychology but renamed in 1913 the Society for Individual Psychology. Although he published numerous articles and books from 1898, he was mostly a practitioner.
1914 | Adler was drafted as a military physician for the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the First World War; after this experience he began to emphasise the importance of Gemeinschaftsgefühl (community feeling) in his teaching and writings.
1922 | Adler began setting up educational teams in child guidance for Vienna's State schools. This psycho-educational movement was suppressed when the fascists took over in Austria in 1934, which was to be annexed by Hitler's Nazi Germany the following year.
1929 | Adler became an adjunct professor at Columbia University and started to shift the base of his operations from Vienna to New York.
1932 | Adler became a Professor at the Long Island College of Medicine, his first full-time academic position in the USA, where he settled. He also toured extensively, giving lectures in and outside the United States.
1937 | During a lecture tour in the UK, Adler died in Aberdeen, Scotland, on 28 May.
Back to the top
Basic assumptions of Individual Psychology
Individual Psychology is a system of theory and practice built upon psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioural, existential and humanistic principles.
1. All behaviour has social meaning
Adler departed from Freud's assumption that human behaviour is motivated by sexual instinct. Adler's assumption was that human behaviour is motivated by social needs and that human beings are inherently social beings. He substituted an interpersonal relationship mode for the intrapersonal id-ego-superego personality structure of Freud.
Adler offers an optimistic and humanistic view of life that considers human beings as profoundly capable of co-operation in order to live together and strive for self-improvement, self-fulfilment and contribution to the common welfare. Without co-operation, we would annihilate each other. Following from this view of the human condition, Adler based his psychology on the central concept of Gemeinschafts-gefühl, literally meaning 'community feeling' and usually translated as Social Interest.
Adlerian psychology is a social psychology in which the individual is always seen and understood within a social context. Mental health is measured by the degree to which we successfully share with others and are concerned with their welfare.
2. The human personality has unity and guiding themes
The name of Individual Psychology given by Adler to his theory has been a source of misunderstandings in English translations. In German "individual" means indivisible, as its Latin roots indicate. The person is an indivisible unit and needs to be understood as a "total person" in which the thoughts, feelings, actions, dreams, memories, and even physiology, lead in the same direction.
The person is a system in which the whole is greater than and different from its parts. In this whole, Adler saw the unity of the person in whose behaviour there is a consistent theme.
3. Behaviour is a function of our subjective perceptions
How do we develop this guiding theme? It is an active and creative process in which individuals attribute meaning to the life experiences they have faced. They construct out of this raw material the subjective reality to which they respond.
It is not childhood experiences that are crucial. It is our present interpretation of these events.
4. All behaviour is purposeful
Adler maintained that all behaviour is purposeful and goal-directed, although individuals may not always be consciously aware of having such motives. If individuals have capacities that they do not develop or use, this lack of action serves a purpose. Use is more important than possession.
Individuals are not passive victims of heredity or environment (not objects) but active constructors and interpreters of their situations (subjects).
5. The striving for significance explains motivation
Adler found that as a result of its initial helplessness, an infant feels inferior and strives to overcome a feeling of incompletion by striving for a higher level of development. Feeling inferior and compensating for that feeling becomes the dynamic principle of motivation, moving an individual from one of level of development to another. This striving continues throughout life.
The process begins in infancy as children become aware of their inadequacies, especially when comparing themselves to older children and adults. As a result they experience what Adler described as "minus situations". The inferiority feelings become motivation for striving towards what he called "plus situations".
Adler held that individuals were not always guided in their actions by reality but also by fictions. Hence Adler's concept of a final goal, which is a fictional creation, an imagined ideal situation that guides the person in the present. The final goal is the result of a process that is unique to each individual, a process that Adler called private logic.
Without proper support and encouragement in the formative years of their lives, individuals may develop exaggerated feelings of inferiority and a striving towards a goal of imagined superiority, and avoid real tests of themselves. Their final goal would be egocentric, on the useless side of life, rather than a goal of co-operation and a feeling of community. It would reveal self-interest, concern with power, avoidance and withdrawal.
6. The Style of Life
Adler called an individual characteristic approach to life, the style of life, the unique way in which each individual tries to realise their fictional final goal and meets, or avoids, what he called the three main tasks of life: work, community and intimate relationship (love and sex). A life style is formed early in childhood and is unique - no two people develop the same styles. In healthy individuals, dealing with the life tasks is relatively flexible. They can find ways of solving problems and when one way is blocked, they can choose another one but this is not so for the disturbed individuals who usually insist on one way or no way.
Back to the top
History of the Adlerian Society
Originally compiled by Helen Anderson (1915-2007), Rita Udall (1918-2006), and Paola Prina, one of our current Vice-Presidents.
The first contact Alfred Adler had with the UK was in Oxford, where in 1923 he attended the seventh International Congress of Psychology and gave a lecture in German on Individual Psychology. He returned to Oxford University in 1926 before his first visit to the USA, and again in 1936. Soon after his first visit, a group was formed in London called 'the Gower Street Club of Individual Psychology', which later became known as 'the Adler Society'. Unfortunately this society became tainted with political bias and between 1928 and 1930 its medical members broke away and formed the Medical Society for Individual Psychology.
Adler made a special visit to London in 1931 and removed his name from the former 'Adler Society'. Thanks to the Medical Society and its association with the International Society (now the Association) for Individual Psychology, the Adlerian movement in Great Britain continued to develop. Later on a new group started in London with Adler as its President.
Not long afterwards, on May 28, 1937, Adler died in Aberdeen while on a lecture tour. His daughter Alexandra succeeded him as President. After the war and protracted discussions to find possible ways forward, a new society was eventually formed in the summer of 1952, with Dr Neil Beattie as its Chairman (our current President is his daughter, Dr Lilian Beattie). This was the 'Adlerian Society of Great Britain', now known as the 'Adlerian Society (of the United Kingdom) and Institute for Individual Psychology' (ASIIP).
The society formed in 1952 was linked by affiliation with the 'Medical Society', with Dr Neil Beattie as its Chair. From this time public lectures began to be held in the Friends Meeting House in central London. They took place monthly from October to June - a tradition which continues to the present. Now they are held in the Conway Hall, also in central London, where Adler gave three lectures in 1936.
Around this time, Paul Rom initiated a newsletter. He was its first editor until his death. It was initially produced 'on behalf of the International Association of Individual Psychology'. Later on, the UK society started its own newsletter, which continues to this day with four issues a year. In the late 1940s, a residential weekend began to be held annually. This tradition also continues and since the early 1970s it has been held at St Hilda's College in Oxford.
It took a long time to progress from fostering interest in Adler's work to getting organised training under way. The growth of the Adlerian movement in the UK owes a great deal to the teaching and training of the late Professor Manford Sonstegard (Sonsty). He first addressed the UK Adlerian Society in 1974, and returned to train the following year and subsequent years, later settling in this country, and serving as President of ASIIP until his death in 2009.
Training Courses are now held in London, Cambridge, Aylesbury, Narberth (Wales), Liverpool and Cumbria. There is a one-week Adlerian Summer School held at Green Park in Wendover (Buckinghamshire) in August every year, and Parent and Teacher Education is also underway in many areas. Since 1996, a new journal has been published, the ASIIP Year Book, with an annual issue containing articles from contributors based in Great Britain and from abroad.
Back to the top