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. Self-transcendence is a mental disorder with feelings of inferiority and selfish concern for one's own safety and control over others. 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. 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.