Concept

Alfred Adler

Overview

Alfred Adler ( AD-lər; Austrian German: [ˈalfreːd ˈaːdlɐ]; February 7, 1870 – May 28, 1937) was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of individual psychology. His emphasis on the importance of feelings of belonging, relationships within the family, and birth order set him apart from Freud and others in their common circle. He proposed that contributing to others ("social interest" or Gemeinschaftsgefühl) was how the individual feels a sense of worth and belonging in the family and society. His earlier work focused on inferiority, coining the term "inferiority complex", an isolating element which he argued plays a key role in personality development. Adler considered a human being as an individual whole, and therefore he called his school of psychology Individual Psychology.

Adler was the first to emphasize the importance of the social element in the re-adjustment process of the individual and to carry psychiatry into the community. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Adler as the 67th most eminent psychologist of the 20th century.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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This is either the self-love that consists in an excessive fondness for oneself (philautia), or satisfaction with oneself (arrogantia). The former is called particularly selfishness; the latter self-conceit. Pure practical reason only checks selfishness, looking on it as natural and active in us even prior to the moral law, so far as to limit it to the condition of agreement with this law, and then it is called…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Practical Reason
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I mean _mechanical activity_. It is indisputable that a suffering existence can be thereby considerably alleviated. This fact is called to-day by the somewhat ignoble title of the "Blessing of work." The alleviation consists in the attention of the sufferer being absolutely diverted from suffering, in the incessant monopoly of the consciousness by action, so that consequently there is little room left for…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals The Complete Works, Volume Thirteen, edited by Dr. Oscar Levy.
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The UNMANLINESS of that which is called "sympathy" by such groups of visionaries, is always, I believe, the first thing that strikes the eye.--One must resolutely and radically taboo this latest form of bad taste; and finally I wish people to put the good amulet, "GAI SABER" ("gay science," in ordinary language), on heart and neck, as a protection against it.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
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Part of Psychoanalytic theory.

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