Alfred Adler
Austrian physician and founder of individual psychology
Viennese physician who left Freud's circle in 1911 and developed individual psychology, with its focus on inferiority feelings, compensation, social interest and birth order, and who opened child guidance clinics in Vienna after the First World War.
Why this person matters
Adler was an early dissenter from Freud's psychoanalysis. His emphasis on social context, prevention and parenting fed counselling and child guidance, and later neo-Freudians took up some of his ideas.
Main contributions
Individual psychology
He stressed feelings of inferiority and compensation, a unified 'style of life' and social interest (community feeling). He also described three life tasks: work, society and love.
Child guidance clinics
After the First World War he opened the first child guidance clinic in Vienna (sources date it to 1919 or 1921). About thirty clinics operated in the city until the authorities closed them.
Breaking with Freud
In 1902 Freud invited him to a discussion group that became the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Adler became its president in 1910, left in 1911, and named his school Individualpsychologie in 1912.
Context and limits
Adler produced no scientific support for his claims about birth order. He described homosexuality as a lack of social interest, a view that was controversial and that he may have softened late in life. He is also described as an early supporter of feminism. He died in 1937 in Aberdeen, Scotland, during a lecture tour.
In your introductory course
Personality.Appears in the personality chapter for inferiority feelings and birth order, and as a neo-Freudian in therapy chapters.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 11.3. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1902
Joined Freud's discussion group in Vienna.
- 1911
Left the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society with a group of followers.
- 1919
Helped start child guidance clinics in Vienna (some sources give 1921).
- 1927
Became a visiting professor at Columbia University.
Sources
- Encyclopedia.com, Adler, AlfredReference work. Reference article inspected.
- New World Encyclopedia, Alfred AdlerReference work. Reference article inspected.
- Wikipedia, Alfred AdlerReference work. Reference article inspected.