Individual Psychology

Introduction:
Individual psychology is the psychological method or science
founded by the Viennese psychiatrist Alfred Adler . The English edition of
Adler's work on the subject (1925) is a collection of papers and lectures
given mainly in 1912–1914, and covers the whole range of human
psychology in a single survey, intended to mirror the indivisible unity of the
personality.

In developing the concept of "individual psychology" Adler broke away

from the psychoanalytic school of Sigmund Freud . In this development,
Adler did call his work "free psychoanalysis" for a time, but he later rejected
the label of "psychoanalyst" . His method, involving a holistic approach to
the study of character , has been extremely influential in later 20th century
counselling and psychiatric strategies .

The term "individual psychology" (German: Individualpsychologie)

does not mean to focus on the individual. Adler said one must take into
account the patient's whole environment, including the people the patient
associates with. The term "individual" is used to mean the patient is an
indivisible whole.

Alfred Adler's theory is at once a model of personality, a theory of

psychopathology, and in many cases the foundation of a method for mind
development and personal growth. Adler wrote, "Every individual
represents a unity of personality and the individual then fashions that
unity. The individual is thus both the picture and the artist. Therefore, if
one can change one's concept of self, they can change the picture being
painted." His Individual Psychology is based on a humanistic model of
man. Among the basic concepts are:

Holism: The Adlerian views man as a unit, a self-conscious whole that

functions as an open system, not as a collection of drives and instincts.

Field Theory: The premise is that an individual can only be studied

by his movements, actions and relationships within his social field. In the
context of Mind Development, this is essentially the examination of tasks of
work, and the individual's feelings of belonging to the group.

Teleology: ("power to will" or the belief that individuals are guided not
only by mechanical forces but that they also move toward certain goals of
self-realization). While Adler's name is linked most often with the term
'inferiority-complex,' towards the end of his career he became more
concerned with observing the individual's struggle for significance or
competence (later discussed by others as self-realization, or self-
actualization, etc.). He believed that, standing before the unknown, each
person strives to become more perfect, and in health is motivated by one
dynamic force - the upward striving for completion - and all else is
subordinated to this one master motive. Behavior is understood as goal-
directed movement, though the person may not be fully aware of this
motivation.

The Creative Self: The concept of the creative self-places the

responsibility for the individual's personality into his own hands. The
Adlerian practitioner sees the individual as responsible for himself, he
attempts to show the person that he cannot blame others or uncontrollable
forces for his current condition.

Life-Style: An individual's striving towards significance and belonging

can be observed as a pattern. This pattern manifests early in life and can be
observed as a theme throughout his lifetime. This permeates all aspects of
perception and action. If one understands an individual's lifestyle, his
behavior makes sense.

Private intelligence: it is the reasoning invented by an individual

to stimulate and justify a self-serving style of life. By contrast, common
sense represents society's cumulative, consensual reasoning that recognizes
the wisdom of mutual benefit.

The Adlerian Unconscious

"There appears to be no contrast between the conscious and the
unconscious, that both cooperate for a higher purpose, that our thoughts
and feelings become conscious as soon as we are faced with a difficulty, and
unconscious as soon as our personality requires it."
The unconscious-to-conscious relation is as "photo-to-negative": by just
one lie to oneself, the unconscious can support and realize the ideal or goal
determined by consciousness, e.g. "I am the victim in this situation," "I
deserve better," "My violence was well justified." Once such a simple re-
draft of the plain experience has been made, it continues unconsciously to
take over one affect and behavior, whether one is awake or asleep. In
dreams, the Adlerian unconscious can sometimes be caught engaged in the
very same problem-solving work as goes on in daily life, yet without the
constraints of reality. Thus dreams become a continuation of daytime
speculations and anxieties and a re-organizing of conflicts between values,
ideals and actual experience.

Fictional Finalism
Adler was influenced by the philosopher Hans Vaihinger who proposed
that people live by many fictional ideals that have no relation to reality and
therefore cannot be tested and confirmed. For example, that all men are
created equal; women should always bow to the will of their husband; and
the end justifies the means. These fictions may help a person feel powerful
and justify the rightness of their selfish choices, although at the same time
cause others harm and injustice and destroy relationships. Adler took this
idea and concluded that people are motivated more by their expectations of
the future than they are by the past. If a person believes that there is heaven
for those who are good and hell for those who are bad, it will probably affect
how that person lives. An ideal or absolute is a fiction.

Fictional Finalism proposes that people act as much from accepted ideals as
they do from observed reality. Whatever the subconscious mind accepts as
true, it acts as if it is true whether it is or not - it does not have the benefit of
the conscious mind's ability to observe independent and check with real
experience. From the point of the view of the person, such a fiction may be
taken as the basis for their orientation in the world and as one aspect of
compensation for felt inferiority.

The Adlerian Ego

Hans Vaihinger described how every discipline - psychology, sociology,
philosophy, law, and even the sciences - establishes fictions to try to
describe the reality. And after a while, we tend to think of these fictions as
having reality to them, so that when we talk about a part of the mind such
as Ego, Libido or Higher Self, we're basically trying to hone in on a region of
functioning that in fact doesn't exist as a separate entity. Adler disagreed
with Freud on a number of issues, particularly regarding the division of the
personality into Ego, Id and Superego - he preferred to consider the entire
person, as they function.

Freud hypothesized a division of the personality into these so-called

segments or dynamic parts, but Adler said that there is no division, that the
personality is a complete unity. Adler believed that you could not accurately
look at the personality as subdivided, that you had to look at it only as a
whole, as an organized whole without contradictions. Even when
distinguishing between conscious and unconscious, Adler felt that there
was a kind of fluidity there, because what seems to be unconscious can be
raised to consciousness very rapidly under certain circumstances. Freud
indicated that there was a conflict or war between the parts of the
personality, between the Id and the Ego and the Superego. But Adler said
that that is an erroneous assumption. He felt that there is no internal war or
conflict, and that the individual moves only in one direction... Adler
believed that the personality was organized around a single "fictional final
goal."

Inferiority complex
Adlerian psychology assumes a central personality dynamic reflecting the
growth and forward movement of life. It is a future-oriented striving toward
an ideal goal of significance, mastery, success or completion. Children start
their lives smaller, weaker, and less socially and intellectually competent
than the adults around them. They have the desire to grow up, to become a
capable adult, and as they gradually acquire skills and demonstrate their
competence, they gain in confidence and self-esteem. This natural striving
for perfection may however be held back if their self-image is degraded by
failures in physical, intellectual and social development or of they suffer
from the criticisms of parents, teachers and peers.
If we are moving along, doing well, feeling competent, we can afford to
think of others. If we are not, if life is getting the best of us, then our
attentions become increasingly focused on our self; we may develop an
inferiority complex: become shy and timid, insecure, indecisive,
cowardly, submissive, compliant, and so on.

The inferiority complex is a form of neurosis and as such it may become all-
consuming. A person with an inferiority complex tends to lack social
interest; instead they are self-interested: focused on themselves and what
they believe to be their deficiencies. They may compensate by working hard
to improve in the skills at which they lack, or they may try to become
competent at something else, but otherwise retaining their sense of
inferiority. Since self-esteem is based on competence, those who have not
succeeded in recovering from this neurosis may find it hard to develop any
self-esteem at all and are left with the feeling that other people will always
be better than they are.

As a further compensation, we may also develop a superiority complex,

which involves covering up our inferiority by pretending to be superior. If
we feel small, one way to feel big is to make everyone else feel even smaller!
Bullies, big-heads, and petty dictators everywhere are the prime example.
Subtler examples are the people who are given to attention-getting
dramatics, the ones who feel powerful when they commit crimes, and the
ones who put others down for their gender, race, ethnic origins, religious
beliefs, sexual orientation, weight, height, etc. Some resort to hiding their
feelings of worthlessness in the delusions of power afforded by alcohol and
drugs.
Private intelligence
In the case of a neurotic failure in life, his reasoning may be 'intelligent'
within his own frame of reference, but is nevertheless socially insane. For
example, a thief said: "The young man had plenty of money and I had none;
therefore, I took it." Since this criminal does not think himself capable of
acquiring money in the normal manner, in the socially useful way, there is
actually nothing left for him but robbery. So the criminal approaches his
goal through what seems to him to be an 'intelligent' argument; however,
his reason is based on private intelligence, which does not include social
interest or responsibility. Reasoning which has general validity is
intelligence that is connected with social interest. Whereas isolated private
intelligence may seem 'clever' to the individual concerned but if it conflicts
with social needs it is of little value. Adler says it's a matter of being
overwhelmed by the inferiority complex.

Neurotics, psychotics, criminals, alcoholics, vandals, prostitutes, drug

addicts, perverts, etc. are lacking in social interest. They approach the
problems of occupation, friendships and sex without the confidence that
they can be solved by cooperation. Their interest stops short at their own
person - their idea of success in life is self-centered, and their triumphs
have meaning only to themselves.

Conclusion
Disguised under a different terminology, Freud in reality accepted many
basic Adlerian postulates. Adlerian Psychology has had a tremendous effect
on Freudian ideas as they are used now, because the neo-Freudians come
very close to the neo-Adlerian. The inclusion of social forces on personality
by neo-Freudians seem to come more from Adler than Freud. There was a
time in which Adler's views corresponded with Freud's thinking, but Freud
disapproved of the aggression instinct when Adler introduced it in 1908.
Later, in 1923, long after Adler had discarded instinct theory, Freud
incorporated the aggression instinct into psychoanalysis.

Instead of delving into the unconscious, Adler sticks to "surface

phenomena;" he finds no contradiction between these ideas and Freudian
theory. However, where Freud may have searched for and identified certain
agents as determining the individual's maladjustment, Adler thought that
such factors were not causal but rather that they influenced the individual's
sense of self through the conclusions he draws from them. Adler's
popularity was related to the comparative optimism and comprehensibility
of his ideas compared to those of Freud or Jung. And there was never a
"cult of personality" around Adler as there was around Freud and Jung
(and more recently, Perls and Berne). Along with Freud and Jung, Adler
was one of the founding giants in the field of ideas. Adler, Freud, and Jung
were the key figures in the development of psychology as we know it.