Alfred Adler's Theory of Neurosis and Individual Psychology

Introduction

Although he first formulated his theories of neurosis and the human personality at the turn of the century, the psychological approach of Alfred Adler is even more relevant to today's societal climate. Adler stressed the need for persons to find a sense of future-directed, goal-oriented, and authentic selfhood located within a larger societal community. As modern society becomes increasingly isolated, and people spend more time in solitude on their computers rather than connecting to their communities, the Adlerian approach is more, rather than less, important than it was when Adler first conceived of his new approach to therapy.

Neurosis: The Modern Condition of Isolation and Dissatisfaction

Additionally, the Adlerian emphasis on the need to vanquish one's false, idealized, or fictive self is important to keep in mind in a world where self-perfection — the idea that one's better self and true happiness will arrive after the latest makeover or through buying the newest consumer product — distorts our perspective on everyday life. Adler's framework offers a helpful corrective for gaining a more balanced view of modern existence.

Like Freud, Alfred Adler viewed neurosis as one of the core problems of modern human beings. Unlike Freud, however, Adler rejected the idea that sexual conflict alone was the root of all human psychological suffering. Sexuality was only one of many sources of human problems, not the defining problem from which all others derived. Adler formally broke with Freud's psychoanalytic approach in 1911. He believed that feelings of helplessness during childhood arose not from Oedipal conflicts or parent-child tension, but that a general sense of lacking agency in childhood frequently led to an inferiority complex ("Alfred Adler," 2006, Psicafe). It is this aspect of Adler's view of personality that has most thoroughly entered both modern psychoanalytic theory and everyday language.

The Inferiority Complex

"The use of the word complex later gained acceptance to denote the group of emotionally toned ideas, partially or even wholly repressed, organized around and related to such feelings of inferiority. The term inferiority complex has lost much of its significance through imprecise popular misuse — for example, as an inappropriately facile explanation of any show of ambition by a person of less-than-average height" ("Inferiority Complex," 2006, Encyclopedia Britannica). Adler described the complex as a client's general feelings of lack of self-worth. "We all wish to overcome difficulties. We all strive to reach a goal by the attainment of which we shall feel strong, superior, and complete," and when this goal is not met, a sense of inferiority in relation to other people arises (Fischer, 2001).

Often, to mask an inferiority complex on an unconscious level, persons develop a consciously manifested superiority complex. This complex develops when a person attempts to conquer their inferiority complex by suppressing their existing feelings. Adler "felt that people were constantly trying to overcome their feelings of inferiority to reach superiority" (Fischer, 2001).

Conclusion

"Our democratic way of life has eroded badly into widespread self-interest and indifference," observed one Adlerian therapist (Stein, 2006). People have grown more obsessed with constructing a future, fictive self than with relating genuinely to others. By helping patients gain a sense of positive agency in the world and understand the roots of their inferiority complex — facilitated through a "diplomatic, cooperative working relationship" with an Adlerian therapist that establishes a feeling of equality via Socratic questioning — the client can become more capable of real cognitive change: "clarifying thinking and feeling, making conclusions, and coming to decisions" (Stein, 2006). That client will return to his or her life and community as a better citizen as well as a happier person.