Adler, Alfred that is, was given birth to in Vienna, Austria on February 7, 1870. He was the second of six children. He grew up in the suburbs of Vienna. Alfred was extremely close with his father. An intriguing memory of his childhood is when he was five years old, very ill with pneumonia, the doctor had told his father that Alfred would never survive. This was the point in time that Alfred realized he wanted to become a doctor in order to fight deadly diseases. His mind was set and in 1895 he received his .D. degree from the University of Vienna.

    Motivation of his work was driven by his strong awareness of social problems. Even in his earliest years as a physician at the University of Vienna Medical School, he concentrated on the patient in relation to the total environment. From this he developed a humanistic, holistic approach to human conflicts. In 1898 Adler authored his first book which dealt with health conditions of tailors. In it he looks at man as a whole, as a functioning entity, reacting to his environment along with physical power, rather than as total instinctual, drives and other psychologic manifestations.

    Because Adler who was one of a few who responded favorably to Freud's book about dream interpretation, Freud wanted to meet with him to discuss newer aspects of psychopathology. This was in 1902 and by this time, Adler had been collecting data on patients with physical handicaps and studied their organic and psychological reactions to the handicaps. However, the two finally grew apart when Adler published his book about organ inferiority and its physical compensation (Alfred Adler Institute of San Francisco, 1997). In his writings, he suggested that psychologically, people try to compensate for physical disabilities and the feeling of inferiority that accompanies it and that unsatisfactory compensation results in neurosis. Never had Adler agreed with Freud's view that mental difficulties were solely a result of sexual trauma and he also rejected the generalizations that when dreams were interpreted, they were sexual wishes for fulfillment. Adler claimed that sex was only a symbolic role in people's goals to overcome feelings of inadequacy. Freud and Adler tried to discuss and reconcile their disagreements but attempts failed. In 1911, Adler and eight of his colleagues left Freud's circle and formed their own school which centered around his developed psychological system called "Individual Psychology." Sometimes this term is misunderstood. It refers to the undivided personality in its psychological structure. He wrote a book in 1912, The Neurotic Constitution, which outlined this concept. After he left the circle, he and Freud never met again.

    Individual psychology holds that people's primary motivation is to strive for "superiority", for example self-realization, completeness, or perfection. Feelings of inferiority, inadequacy, or incompleteness brought about by physical defects, being low in social status, having been pampered or neglected as a child or other events in life can result in problematic frustrations for achieving superiority. By developing skills and or abilities, people can compensate for their feelings of being inferior or they will develop the inferiority complex, which will eventually come to dominate their behavior, this is unhealthy to the individual. However, an ego centered motivation for power results in overcompensation of inferiority feelings.

    Every individual forms personality and searches for perfection in different ways. This is what Adler called a style of life. The lifestyle develops in early childhood and is partly influenced by what inferiority events affected a child most dramatically in the first years of life. Along side the striving for superiority is a second innate urge, to cooperate and work with others for a common good. Adler refered to this drive as social interest. Reason, social-interest, and self-transcendence are characterized as mental health. Self-transcendence is a mental disorder with feelings of inferiority and selfish concern for one's own safety and control over others.

    In treatment, an Alderian psychotherapist steers the patient's thoughts to the neurotic and unsuccessful nature of his/her attempts to deal with feelings of inferiority. When the patient finally becomes aware of these, the job of the therapist is to help the person set more realistic goals, boost the patient's self-esteem and push for a more useful behavior in the patient and encourage building a stronger social interest. Inferiority complex is a feeling of inferiority that is partly or wholly unconscious. Those who mostly used the term were early followers of Adler, whom suggested that many outstanding achievements, some even antisocial behavior and other characteristics of personality could be a result of overcompensation for this feeling. The expression "complex" acquired acceptance to refer to the collection of emotionally felt ideas, partly or even wholly repressed that arranged around and connected to the feelings of inferiority. "Inferiority complex" has lost much of its significant use as a term because of popular and imprecise misuse. For instance, people will misquote an ambitious person who has a physically small stature as having an inferiority complex (Encyclopedia Britannica Online: Adler, Alfred, 1996).

    As discussed earlier, Adler once an earlier follower, refuted Freud's view of sexual motives. The coping strategy that Adler called compensation, was an important influence on behavior. According to Adler people who compensate for a deficient behavior exaggerate another behavior. This process is analogous to organic processes called hypertrophy. This can be illustrated by a person having one blind eye, and the other eye compensates for this loss by becoming more acute. In the view of Adler, people with feelings of inferiority because of a mental or physical inadequacy would acquire compensating symptoms or behaviors. An example of this is a short individual becomes dominant and controlling. This brings forth another intertwined theory in this matter, a child's position in the family structure. Adler believed that the prominent place in familial dynamics played a significant role in personality development. A simplification of Adler's theory as follows:

    This is the general overview of the situational aspects of a child with other siblings. An only boy among girls usually spends a lot of time around females. He may try t o prove that he is the man in the family or become effeminate. An only girl among boys sometimes will have big brother(s) as a protector. Either she can be very feminine, or be a tomboy and outdo the brothers. She may try to please the father. A family with all boys can sometimes be disappointing to a family that wanted a girl and sometimes the boy will be dressed as a girl. The son may capitalize on assigned role or reject it strongly. A daughter born into all sisters may be dressed as a boy and she also may capitalize on assigned role or refuse it (Stein, 1997).

    Through out his career as an Austrian psychiatrist, Adler can be accredited for many accomplishments. In 1918 after Adler returned from war duty, he founded several child guidance clinics in Vienna. He was invited to lecture and be a visiting professor at Columbia University in 1926 from there in 1932 he went on to be on the first chair of Visiting Professor of Medical Psychology at Long Island College of Medicine in New York. Throughout these years he spent the summers in Vienna and came to the United States to lecture during the rest of the year. The rest of his family came to be with him in America in 1935. Back home in Austria in 1934, his clinics were closed down by the government.

    All of his given lectures that he delivered during his career were overcrowded, he spoke very well in English although his native tongue was German. On May 28, 1937, while in Aberdeen, Scotland to deliver a series of lectures at the University, Adler all of a sudden fell while walking in the street. He died as a result of heart failure with in minutes. Alfred Adler will always be a well-known and respected member of psychology and one that contributed greatly to his passion of the field.

Bibliography

Alfred Adler Institute of San Francisco; Biographical Sketch of Alfred Adler.

Copyright 1997. http://searchyahoo.com/bin/search?p=%22alfred+adler%22 

Encyclopedia Britannica Online: Adler, Alfred. Copyright 1996.

http://search.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=3788&sctn=1#s_top  

Stein, Ph.D., Henry, Alderian Overview of Birth Order Characteristics.

Alfred Adler Institute of San Francisco. Copyright 1997.

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/hstein/birthkord.htm