- Person
- Alfred Adler
- Lived
- 1870–1937
- Field
- Individual psychology
- From
- Austrian
The story
Alfred Adler grew up near Vienna in a family whose fortunes swung between relative wealth and near-poverty, and he played with children from all walks of life. He later said these early observations of social and economic diversity contributed to his emphasis on the importance of social interest.
The idea took its full shape during and after the First World War. Adler served as an army doctor with the Austro-Hungarian forces, and his duties included deciding which wounded soldiers were fit to return to the trenches. During the war he began to articulate the concept he called Gemeinschaftsgefühl, usually translated as social interest or community feeling. Galvanised by what he had seen, he went on to promote social feeling as the primary trait underlying mental health.
He defined it as an awareness of the responsibility to love and cooperate with other people and to contribute to the welfare of humanity. Contributing to others, he argued, is how a person comes to feel worth and belonging in the family and in society. Mental health shows itself in how well a person meets the three great tasks of life, work, friendship and love, and all three depend on cooperation.
The idea was controversial at first. To some colleagues the term seemed to carry religious overtones, and some resigned from his society, calling it religious science. But in postwar Austria, where statesmen had failed to prevent the war's losses, Adler's views on human nature found a ready audience, and his international reputation grew.
In his late book Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind (1938), Adler described social feeling as a goal pointing toward an ideal community of all humankind, including a sense of connection with nature and the cosmos. He called it a regulative ideal: not something ever fully achieved, but a direction that gives life meaning.
Social interest remains the core construct of Adlerian psychology. Modern Adlerians describe it as combining feeling connected to humanity, recognising interdependence and acting for the common good, and it has a close kinship with the field of community psychology, which has led some to call Adler the first community psychologist.
Why it matters
Adler's idea that well-being comes from belonging and contribution remains central to counselling, education and community psychology.
About Alfred Adler
Viennese physician who broke with Freud to found individual psychology, coined the “inferiority complex” and opened the world’s first child guidance clinics.
More about Alfred Adler
- Alfred Adler showed how birth order shapes personalityAlfred Adler argued that a child's place among siblings, first, middle or youngest, influences personality, extending psychology beyond the parent-child bond.
- Alfred Adler coined the term inferiority complexAlfred Adler introduced the idea of the inferiority complex, describing how feelings of inadequacy can shape personality and how people strive to compensate.
- Alfred Adler founded the school of individual psychologyAfter leaving Freud's circle in 1911, Alfred Adler founded the Society for Individual Psychology in 1912, the first major independent school of psychotherapy.
- Alfred Adler's first book linked health to social conditionsIn 1898 Alfred Adler published a health book for tailors arguing that their illnesses must be treated in light of their social and economic conditions.
- Alfred Adler influenced Maslow, Frankl and EllisAlfred Adler's ideas shaped later giants of psychotherapy, including Abraham Maslow, Viktor Frankl, Albert Ellis and Rollo May.
- Alfred Adler replaced the analyst's couch with two chairsAlfred Adler was one of the first psychotherapists to discard the analytic couch in favour of two chairs, so therapist and patient could sit as equals.
- Alfred Adler studied war neurosis among WWI soldiersAs an army doctor in World War I, Alfred Adler treated traumatised soldiers and lectured on war neurosis, a forerunner of what is now called PTSD.
- Alfred Adler championed parent education and equalityAlfred Adler urged that children be raised as equal members of the family, opposed corporal punishment, and argued early for women's equality in psychology.
- Alfred Adler opened Vienna's first child guidance clinicIn 1919 Alfred Adler started the first child guidance clinic in Vienna; he and his associates went on to open 28, making Vienna the first city to give schoolchildren free therapy.
Sources
- Alfred Adler Wikipedia
- Alfred Adler: To Heal and to Educate Vision
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