# Individual psychology

Individual psychology (German: Individualpsychologie) is a psychological method and school of thought founded by the Austrian psychiatrist Alfred Adler. The English edition of Adler's work on the subject (1925), The Practice and Theory of Individual Psychology, is a collection of papers and lectures given mainly between 1912 and 1914. These papers provide a comprehensive overview of psychology and were intended to reflect the indivisible unity of the personality.
In developing individual psychology, Adler broke away from Freud's psychoanalytic school. While Adler initially termed his work "free psychoanalysis", he later rejected the label of "psychoanalyst". His method, involving a holistic approach to character study, was highly influential in later 20th-century counseling and psychiatric strategies.
The term "individual psychology" refers not only to the individual but also to the patient as an indivisible entity. Adler stated that one must consider the patient's entire environment, including their social connections.

## Adler's psychology

Adler's psychology differs from the Freudian standpoint, which bases a person's psychology on sex and libido. Instead, Adler's psychology focuses on the individual's evaluation of the world with special attention to societal factors. According to Adler, a person must confront three forces: the societal, the love-related, and the vocational. These confrontations shape the final nature of a personality. Adler based his theories on a person's pre-adulthood development, emphasizing factors such as unwanted children, physical deformities at birth, and birth order.
Adler's theory is similar to the humanistic psychology of Abraham Maslow, who acknowledged Adler's influence on his own theories. Both assert that the individual human being is the best judge of their own needs, desires, interests, and growth.

### The theory of compensation, resignation, and over-compensation

According to Adler, humans are primarily motivated by feelings of inferiority. In his view, an individual's personality traits stem from external factors arising out of the drive for superiority. An individual's character is formed by their responses to these influences in the following ways:

#### Compensation

Compensation is the tendency to counteract underdevelopment or a sense of inferiority in physical or mental functioning through interest and training, usually within a relatively normal range of development. Neurosis and other pathological states reveal the safeguarding or defensive strategies (largely unconscious) of individuals who believe they are unequal to life's demands. This is a struggle to compensate for a perceived weakness, whether physical or psychological.
In "typical" development, the child experiences encouragement and accepts that their problems can be overcome with patient persistence and cooperation. The "typical" person feels like a full member of society and has "the courage to be imperfect" (Sofie Lazarsfeld).
In adverse circumstances, a child who feels inferior compensates—or overcompensates, perhaps in a grandiose fashion,—by striving, consciously and unconsciously, to overcome and solve life's problems, moving "from a felt minus to a felt plus". A high level of compensation can produce subsequent psychological difficulties.

#### Resignation

Certain individuals may come to terms with their disadvantages or fears, choosing to accept and reconcile themselves to these challenges. This often manifests as a detached or apathetic attitude toward life. While common, such resignation can hinder personal growth and engagement with life's challenges.

#### Over-compensation

Overcompensation reflects a stronger impulse to develop beyond the normal range. This may lead to exceptional achievement, as the stutterer Demosthenes became a successful orator.
Some individuals become so fixated on compensating for their disadvantages that they over-indulge in the pursuit. These individuals become neurotics, indicating the importance of external factors in character formation.

### Primary and secondary feelings of inferiority

The primary feeling of inferiority is the original and normal feeling of smallness, weakness, and dependency experienced by an infant or child. Recognizing this fact was fundamental in Adler's thinking and a key part of his break with Freud. An inferiority feeling typically motivates development. However, a child may develop an exaggerated feeling of inferiority due to physiological difficulties, handicaps, inappropriate parenting (including abuse, neglect, or over-pampering), or cultural and possibly economic barriers.
The secondary inferiority feeling is an adult's feeling of insufficiency resulting from adopting an unrealistically high or impossible compensatory goal, often related to perfection. The degree of distress is proportional to the subjective distance from that goal. Additionally, the residue of the original, primary feeling of inferiority may persist. An inferiority complex is a consistent feeling of inadequacy, often leading to timidity, withdrawal from society, overcompensation, or competitiveness.

### Feeling of community

Translated from German, Gemeinschaftsgefuehl can variably refer to community feeling, social interest, social feeling, or social sense. The feeling of community is the recognition and acceptance of the interconnectedness of all people, experienced on affective, cognitive, and behavioral levels, and was increasingly emphasized in Adler's later writings.
At the affective level, it manifests as a deep feeling of belonging to the human race and empathy with others. At the cognitive level, it is experienced as a recognition of interdependence with others, meaning the welfare of any one individual depends on the welfare of everyone. At the behavioral level, these thoughts and feelings translate into actions aimed at self-development and cooperative, helpful movements directed toward others. Thus, the concept of "feeling of community" encompasses the full development of individuals' capacities, a process that is personally fulfilling and results in people who contribute to one another.

### Withdrawal

In cases of discouragement, individuals who feel incapable of developing in a real and socially valid way create a fantasy of superiority—what Adler termed "an attempt at a planned final compensation and a (secret) life plan"—in a secluded area of life, offering shelter from failure and loss of prestige. This fictional world, sustained by the need to protect an anxious ego, private logic at odds with reason, and a schema of apperception that interprets, filters, and suppresses real-world data, is fragile. It is vulnerable to mounting internal tension and external assaults. The will to be or become is replaced by the will to seem.

### Holism

Central to the Adlerian approach is viewing the personality as a whole, not as the result of component forces, hence the term individual (indivisible) psychology. Adlerians take a stance that bridges the nature-nurture debate by seeing the developing individual creating their personality in response to both nature and nurture but not entirely determined by them. The self-created personality operates subjectively and idiosyncratically. The individual strives for both self-development and social meaning—what Adler called "the concept of social usefulness and the general well-being of humanity"—expressed in a sense of belonging, usefulness, contribution, and even cosmic consciousness.

## Classical Adlerian psychology today

Classical Adlerian psychology is still relevant today. The modern movement describes itself as holistic and values-based, incorporating both depth psychology and practical, democratic principles in daily life. Its mission is to foster psychologically healthy and cooperative individuals, couples, and families to effectively pursue social equality and democratic living. The model assumes that the psyche is not internally conflicted but yearns for purpose, direction, and unity.
Henri Ellenberger wrote of "the slow and continuous penetration of Adlerian insights into contemporary psychological thinking".
Adlerians continue to flourish in the 21st century, some using an eclectic technique integrating elements of other therapies, from the psychodynamic to the cognitive, while others focus on a more classical approach.
With a foundation in Alfred Adler's original teachings and therapeutic style, the movement today incorporates contributions from Kurt Adler, Alexander Müller, Lydia Sicher, Sophia de Vries, and Anthony Bruck; the self-actualization research of Abraham Maslow, who was mentored by Adler; and the innovations of Henry Stein.

### Striving for significance

The basic movement of every human being, from birth to death, is toward expansion, growth, completion, and security. This may take a negative turn into a striving for superiority or power over others, but it is primarily about finding one's place in the world and feeling a sense of belonging. Many reference works mistakenly attribute only the negative "striving for power" as Adler's basic premise.

### Style of life

This concept reflects the organization of the personality, including the meanings individuals assign to the world, others, and themselves; their fictional final goal; and the affective, cognitive, and behavioral strategies they use to reach that goal, whether normal or neurotic. This style is also viewed in the context of the individual's approach to the three tasks of life: relationships, work, and love/sex.

### Fictional final goal

Classical Adlerian Psychology assumes a central personality dynamic that reflects growth and forward movement in life, influenced by Hans Vaihinger's concept of fiction. It is future-oriented, striving toward an ideal goal of significance, superiority, success, or completion: what Adler himself called "an attempt at a planned final compensation and a (secret) life plan".
The pervasive feeling of inferiority, which one aims to compensate for, leads to creating a fictional final goal that subjectively promises total relief from that feeling, along with future security and success. The depth of the inferior feeling usually determines the height of the goal, which then becomes the "final cause" of behavior patterns.

### Unity of the personality

This position views all cognitive, affective, and behavioral facets of an individual as components of an integrated whole, moving in one psychological direction, without internal contradictions or conflicts. Gerald Corey (2012) stated in his book, Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy, that personality can only be understood holistically/systemically. The individual is an indivisible whole, born, raised, and living within specific familial, social, and cultural contexts. In a recent interview with the Journal of Individual Psychology, Jane Griffith said, "The holistic character of thought is in Adler's choice of the term Individual Psychology...It's one word in German, Individualpsychologie: indivisible...Adler also thought that not only is the individual not to be divided up, but he's not to be seen as apart from his context either. He said that you can't examine an isolated individual."

### Private logic (vs. common sense)

Private logic is the reasoning an individual invents to stimulate and justify their style of life. In contrast, common sense represents society's consensual reasoning that recognizes the wisdom of mutual benefit. In 1995, Harold Mosak described Five Basic Mistakes in private logic:
* Overgeneralizations
* False or impossible goals of security
* Misperceptions of life and life's demands
* Minimization or denial of one's basic worth
* Faulty values

### Safeguarding tendency

These are cognitive and behavioral strategies used to avoid or excuse oneself from imagined failure. They can manifest as symptoms—such as anxiety, phobias, or depression—which can be used as excuses for avoiding life's tasks and transferring responsibility to others. They can also take the form of aggression or withdrawal. Aggressive safeguarding strategies include deprecation, accusations, or self-accusations and guilt, which are used to elevate fragile self-esteem and protect an overblown, idealized self-image. Withdrawal involves physical, mental, and emotional distancing from perceived threats.

### Psychology of use (vs. possession)

This perspective suggests individuals use their thinking, feelings, and actions (even symptoms) to achieve a social end. They do not merely inherit or possess certain qualities, traits, or attitudes but adopt only those characteristics that serve their goal, rejecting those that do not fit their intentions. This emphasizes personal responsibility for one's own character.

## Classical Adlerian psychotherapy

Classical Adlerian psychotherapy may involve individual psychotherapy, couple's therapy, or family therapy, either brief or a longer course, but all approaches follow parallel paths rooted in the individual psychology of Adler.
Adler's therapy involved identifying an individual's private life plan, explaining its self-defeating, useless, and predictable aspects, and encouraging a shift of interest toward social and communal goals. Specific techniques used included paradoxes, humorous or historical examples, analysis of the self-protective role of symptoms, and reduction of transference by encouraging self-responsibility. Adler also favored 'prescribing the symptom'—a form of anti-suggestion aimed at making the client's self-defeating behavior less appealing.
Based on a growth model of the mind, Adler's approach aimed to foster social interest and reduce repetitive lifestyles based on archaic private logic. With its emphasis on reasoning with the patient, classical Adlerian therapy shares similarities with cognitive behavioral therapy.
At the heart of Adlerian psychotherapy is encouragement, grounded in the feeling of universal co-humanity and belief in the patient's potential. By making the patient aware of their secret life plan, the therapist can offer an alternative outlook better suited to broader social interests.
This encouragement makes the Adlerian approach valuable for professions focused on child development and education, therapeutic education being one of Adler's central concerns.

### Goals/Overview

Adlerian psychotherapy is unique in that each client receives individualized therapy, created by the therapist in a six-phase process. The overall goal is to establish a relationship between the client and the community to challenge unhealthy thoughts and replace self-defeating behaviors with ones that promote a more positive and healthy lifestyle. The stages of this classical psychotherapy are:
* Phase 1: Focuses on support, broken down into empathy/relationships and information gathering. The therapist provides warmth, and acceptance, and generates hope while giving reassurance and encouragement. Early childhood memories/influences are sought out, providing insight into how the client faces life problems.
* Phase 2: The primary focus is encouragement through clarification and promoting new directions. Therapists clarify vague thinking with Socratic questioning and evaluate the consequences of various actions or ideas. They help the client correct inappropriate ideas about themself and others, creating alternative ways of thinking to redirect their life while clarifying feelings.
* Phase 3: Focuses on insight through interpretation, recognition, and knowing. The client learns to interpret feelings and goals, identifying what they have avoided in the past. This stage integrates Freudian ideas such as dreams, daydreams, and recollections. The client becomes fully aware of their lifestyle, understanding and accepting the need for change.
* Phase 4: Focuses on change through emotional breakthrough, doing differently, and reinforcement. Emotional breakthrough is achieved through role-playing, guided imagery, and narration. The client breaks old patterns and changes their attitude, creating steps based on abstract ideas. The therapist encourages all efforts made by the client to promote change, rewarding and affirming positive feelings and changes while evaluating progress.
* Phase 5: Centers on challenge. The client experiences social interest, giving 100% in relationships and taking risks, extending new feelings of cooperation and empathy to others. Through goal redirection, the client releases their old self and lives by new values. Support and launching occur through inspiring the client to enjoy the unfamiliar, strengthening their feelings of connectedness, and continuing self-growth.
* Phase 6: The Meta-Therapy phase is for clients who have gone through Adler's therapy, readjusted their lives, and are making progress in becoming who they want to be. Clients are advised to identify and pursue what aspects of life are truly important.
The Socratic method guides clients to clarify feelings and meanings, gain insight into intentions and consequences, and consider alternative options. Guided imagery helps bring awareness, change, and growth. Role-playing encourages new behaviors and allows clients to practice managing conflict and other challenges.

### Uses
#### Individual

The basic structure of individual therapy in classical Adlerian psychotherapy is broken down into 5 phases, plus a post-therapy follow-up, with each phase further broken down into multiple stages (13 total). Each stage has different goals for the client and therapist to accomplish, which is the therapy's intended design.

#### Teacher-education programs

Teacher-education programs are designed to increase child cooperation in classrooms. Teachers, parents, and school administrators attend these programs to learn techniques that improve their teaching effectiveness and their ability to handle children. These programs are taught similarly to marital programs.

#### Couple-enrichment programs

Similar to group couple counseling, couple-enrichment programs are conducted by trained professionals for groups of couples (typically about 10) to improve their relationships. Various teaching formats are used, including tools such as role-playing, videos, and psycho-social exercises. Sessions typically last about an hour.

#### Parent and family education programs

These programs are comparable to classes taught by family life educators, focusing on building better family relationships.

## Contemporary techniques

There are two main contemporary schools of Adlerian psychotherapy: those following Rudolf Dreikurs and those identifying as classical Adlerians. Many organizations write about and practice this psychology (The North American Society of Adlerian Psychology (NASAP), The Journal of Individual Psychology, the International Associate of Individual Psychology (IAIP), the International Congress of Adlerian Summer Schools and Institutes (ICASSI), and other organizations). Many universities worldwide offer postgraduate training in Adlerian psychology. This psychotherapy is growing and is steadily being assimilated into mainstream psychotherapy.
A debate exists among contemporary Adlerians regarding the relative roles of belonging and superiority in determining character, with the school associated with Rudolf Dreikurs emphasizing the former, as opposed to classical Adlerian theorists.

### Dreikurs

Rudolf Dreikurs was a psychiatrist who studied under Adler in Vienna. Although Adler's work was popular in America, it declined after his death. Dreikurs revived Adlerian psychotherapy.
Building on Adler's writings, Dreikurs conceptualized a four-stage approach to Adlerian psychotherapy:
* Establishing the therapeutic relationship.
* Assessing the client's lifestyle.
* Promoting the client's insight into their fictive goal.
* Encouraging clients to broaden their interests from the defensive function of a private logic, into a broader sense of community.

### Classical Adlerian psychologists

Adlerian pertains to the theory and practice of Alfred Adler (1870 - 1937), the founder of individual psychology (Individualpsychologie). Adlerian clients are encouraged to overcome insecurities, develop deeper connections, and redirect their striving for significance into more socially beneficial directions. Through respectful Socratic dialogue, they are challenged to correct mistaken assumptions, attitudes, behaviors, and feelings about themselves and the world.
Constant encouragement motivates clients to attempt what was previously felt impossible. The growth of confidence, pride, and gratification leads to a greater desire and ability to cooperate.
The ultimate objective of classical Adlerian psychotherapy is to replace exaggerated self-protection (safeguarding), self-enhancement, and self-indulgence with greater self-knowledge and genuine, courageous social feelings. Notable Adlerians include:
* Alexandra Adler (USA), deceased
* Kurt Alfred Adler (USA), deceased
* Heinz Ansbacher (USA), deceased
* Robert Armstrong (Canada)
* Phyllis Bottome (UK), deceased
* Allan Cox (author) (USA)
* Rudolf Dreikurs (Austria and USA), deceased
* Loren Grey (USA), deceased
* James Hemming (UK), deceased
* Jon Carlson (US), deceased
* Henry Jacoby (Germany)
* Ichiro Kishimi (Japan)
* Arthur Kronfeld (Germany)
* Fritz Künkel (Germany & USA)
* Sofie Lazarsfeld (Austria)
* Kevin Leman (USA)
* Harold Mosak (USA)
* Alexander Mueller (Switzerland), deceased
* Karl Nowotny (Austria), deceased
* Hertha Orgler (Germany and UK)
* Linda Page (Canada)
* Paul Rom (Paul Plottke) (Germany and UK)
* Otto Rühle (Germany)
* Alice Rühle-Gerstel (Germany and Mexico)
* Manes Sperber (Germany), deceased
* Henry T. Stein (USA)
* Richard E. Watts (USA)
* Erwin Wexberg (Austria and USA)

## History

Alfred Adler was greatly influenced by early socialism and Freud, as reflected in his early work and theories. He emphasized that individuals can change their lives. Adler and Freud respected each other, but Adler did not fully agree with Freud's theories. While Adler believed childhood experiences influence current problems, he did not believe they were the only factor, also emphasizing free will and an inborn drive as contributors. He did not believe individuals are victims of their past experiences.

### Biography

"Alfred Adler was born to a Jewish family on February 7, 1870, on the outskirts of Vienna. He was the second oldest child of six. He was often sick as a child, and once he became knowledgeable of death, he decided to become a physician someday. Adler's childhood sickness made him appear weak and inferior. A teacher recommended that he quit school to become an apprentice shoemaker. Adler's family objected to this and Alfred eventually went to medical school and graduated from the University of Vienna with his medical degree specializing in ophthalmology. Alfred met his future wife, Raissa Timofeyewna Epstein, in a series of political meetings that revolved around the current rising socialist movement. The two were married in 1897. Adler started a private practice, which slowly switched to internal medicine. It was here that he observed that many of his patients had diseases that could be traced to social situation origins. Adler's first publication discussed how the social conditions of where people worked influenced diseases and disease processes."

### Career

Early in his career, Adler focused on public health, medical and psychological prevention, and social welfare. Later, he shifted towards children at risk, women's rights, adult education, teacher training, community mental health, family counseling and education, and briefly psychotherapy. Adler started The Group for Free Psychoanalytic Research, later renamed Individual Psychology, with individual meaning "indivisible." With this, he founded his own journal, the Journal for Individual Psychology, marking the beginning of classical Adlerian psychotherapy. Although Adler focused on psychoanalysis when starting his group and worked as a psychiatrist, this focus was brief. After World War I, Adler shifted toward community and social orientation, becoming more of a philosopher, social psychologist, and educator.

### Components

Adler had many areas of focus, but some key components contributed to classical Adlerian psychotherapy (a.k.a. individual psychology). He believed children are born with an inborn force that enables them to make their own decisions and develop their own opinions, stating that individuals aren't just products of their situations but creators of them. A person's feelings, beliefs, and behaviors all work together to make each individual unique.
Another area of focus was on the concept of fiction, defined as conscious and non-conscious ideas that may not be aligned with reality but serve as a guide to cope with it. People create fictions to guide their feelings, thoughts, and actions, as ways of seeing themselves, others, and their environments.
Another concept is finality: the belief that there is only one organized force, a fictitious final goal. This goal is established in early childhood and remains present throughout life, influencing behavior mostly unconsciously. Questions are asked more along the lines of "what for" or "where to" instead of "why" or "where from," focusing on the goal and purpose of a behavior rather than finding its cause. The final cause of the behavior is the focus, hence the term fictitious final goal.
Social interest is another key area, reflecting the belief that individuals are social beings. The way an individual interacts with others is greatly important in terms of their psychological health. Social interest means feeling part of a family, group, or community, and an important related concept is the ability to feel empathy, which connects individuals.

## Works

* Adler, A., Über Den Nervösen Charakter: Grundzüge Einer Vergleichenden Individual-Psychologie Und Psychotherapie, (3rd, revised edition, J F Bergmann Verlag, Munich 1922).
* Adler, A., Praxis Und Theorie der Individual-Psychologie: Vorträge zur Einführung in die Psychotherapie für Ärzte, Psychologen Und Lehrer (Bergmann, 1st ed. Wiesbaden 1919, Munich 1920, 2nd ed. 1924, 3rd ed. 1927, 4th ed. 1930).
* Adler, A., The Practice and Theory of Individual Psychology, translated by P. Radin (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1925; revised edition 1929, & reprints).
* Adler, A., Die Technik der Individual-Psychologie. 1: Die Kunst, eine Lebens - Und Krankengeschichte zu lesen (1st ed., Bergmann, Munich 1928).
* Adler, A., Die Technik der Individual-Psychologie. 2: Die Seele des schwer erziehbaren Schulkindes (Bergmann, Munich 1928: Fischer Verlag 1974).
* Adler, A., Problems of Neurosis: A Book of Case-Histories, edited by Philip Mairet, with prefatory essay by F. G. Crookshank, "Individual Psychology: A Retrospect (and a Valuation)", pp. vii–xxxvii (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & co., London 1929).
* Adler, A., The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler, H. L. Ansbacher and R. R. Ansbacher (Eds.) (Harper Torchbooks, New York 1956).

### Papers contained in Individual Psychology (1929 English revised edition)

* "Individual-Psychology, its assumptions and its results" (1914)
* "Psychical hermaphrodism and the Masculine protest: the cardinal problem of nervous diseases" (1912)
* "New leading principles for the practice of Individual-Psychology" (1913)
* "Individual-Psychological treatment of neuroses" (1913)
* "Contributions to the theory of hallucination" (1912)
* "The study of child psychology and neurosis" (International Congress lecture, 1913)
* "The Psychic treatment of trigeminal neuralgia" (1911)
* "The problem of distance"
* "The masculine attitude in female neurotics"
* "The concept of resistance during treatment" (1916)
* "Syphilophobia" (1911) (phobias and hypochondriac states in the dynamics of neurosis)
* "Nervous insomnia" (1914)
* "Individual-Psychological conclusions on sleep disturbances" (1912)
* "Homo-sexuality" (Lecture to Jurististisch-Medizinische Society, Zurich, 1918)
* "Compulsion neurosis" (Lecture in Zurich, 1918)
* "The function of the compulsion-conception as a means of intensifying the individuality-feeling" (1913)
* "Neurotic hunger-strike"
* "Dreams and dream-interpretation" (Lecture, 1912)
* "The role of the unconscious in neurosis" (1913)
* "Life-lie and responsibility in neurosis and psychosis - A contribution to Melancholia" (1914)
* "Melancholia and paranoia - Individual-psychological results from a study of psychoses" (1914)
* "Individual-psychological remarks on Alfred Berger's Hofrat Eysenhardt" (Lecture, 1912)
* "Dostoevsky" (Lecture, Zurich Tonhalle, 1918)
* "New view-points on War neuroses (1908)"
* "Myelodysplasia (Organ inferiority)" (summary from Studie uber Minderwertigkeit von Organen)
* "Individual-psychological education" (Lecture, Zurich Association of Physicians, 1918)
* "The Individual-psychology of prostitution"
* "Demoralized children" (Lecture, 1920)

## Criticism

Karl Popper argued that Adler's individual psychology, like psychoanalysis, is a pseudoscience because its claims are not testable and cannot be refuted; that is, they are not falsifiable.