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Individual psychology (German: Individualpsychologie) is a psychological method or science founded by the Viennese psychiatrist Alfred Adler. The English edition of Adler's work on the subject (1925) is a collection of papers and lectures given mainly between 1912 and 1914. The papers cover the whole range of human psychology in a single survey, and were intended to mirror the indivisible unity of the personality. In developing the concept of individual psychology, Adler broke away from the psychoanalytic school of Sigmund Freud. While Adler initially called his work "free psychoanalysis", he later rejected the label of "psychoanalyst". His method, involving a holistic approach to the study of character, has been extremely influential in later 20th century counselling and psychiatric strategies. The term "individual psychology" does not focus only on the individual, and is used to refer to the patient as an indivisible entity. Adler said one must take into account the patient's whole environment, including the people the patient associates with. Adler's psychology Adler moved the grounds determining a person's psychology from sex and libido, the Freudian standpoint, to one based on the individual evaluation of world. He gave special prominence to societal factors. According to him, a person has to combat or confront three forces: societal, love-related, and vocational forces. These confrontations determine the final nature of a personality. Adler based his theories on the pre-adulthood development of a person. He laid stress on areas such as hated children, physical deformities at birth, birth order, etc. Adler's theory is similar to the humanistic psychology of Abraham Maslow, who acknowledged Adler's influence on his own theories. Both maintain that the individual human being is the best determinant of his or her own needs, desires, interests, and growth. The theory of compensation, resignation and over-compensation According to Adler, humans are primarily motivated by a feeling of inferiority. In his view, an individual derives his or her personality traits from external factors that arise out of drive for superiority. The character of the individual is formed by his or her responses to their influence in the following ways: Compensation Compensation is a tendency to make up for underdevelopment or inferiority of physical or mental functioning through interest and training, usually within a relatively normal range of development. Neurosis and other pathological states reveal the safe-guarding or defensive stratagems (largely unconscious or out of awareness) of the individual who believes her- or himself to be unequal to the demands of life, in a struggle to compensate for a felt weakness, physical or psychological. In "normal" development, the child has experienced encouragement and accepts that her or his problems can be overcome in time by an investment of patient persistence and cooperation with others. The "normal" person feels a full member of life and has "the courage to be imperfect" (Sofie Lazarsfeld). In less fortunate circumstances, the child, trapped within a sense of inferiority, compensates - or overcompensates, perhaps in grandiose fashion - by striving, consciously and unconsciously, to overcome and solve the problems of life, moving "from a felt minus to a felt plus". A high level of compensation produces subsequent psychological difficulties. Resignation There are those who give in to their disadvantages and/or fears and become reconciled to them. Such people are in the majority. The attitude of the world towards them is of a cool, rather uninterested sympathy. Over-compensation Over-compensation reflects a more powerful impulse to gain an extra margin of development, frequently beyond the normal range. This may take a useful direction toward exceptional achievement, as the stutterer Demosthenes became an outstanding orator, or a useless direction toward excessive perfectionism. Genius may result from extraordinary over-compensation. Under-compensation reflects a less active, even passive attitude toward development that usually places excessive expectations and demands on other people. There are some persons who become so infatuated with the idea of compensating for their disadvantages that they end up over-indulging in the pursuit. These are the neurotics. Thus, external factors are vital in character formation. Primary and secondary feelings of inferiority The primary feeling of inferiority is the original and normal feeling that the infant or child of smallness, weakness, and dependency may experience: appreciation of this fact was a fundamental element in Adler's thinking, and an important part of his break with Sigmund Freud. An inferiority feeling usually acts as an incentive for development. However, a child may develop an exaggerated feeling of inferiority as a result of physiological difficulties or handicaps, inappropriate parenting (including abuse, neglect, over-pampering), or cultural and/or economic barriers. The secondary inferiority feeling is the adult's feeling of insufficiency that results from having adopted an unrealistically high or impossible compensatory goal, often one of perfection. The degree of distress is proportional to the subjective or felt distance from that goal. In addition to this distress, the residue of the original, primary feeling of inferiority may still haunt an adult. An inferiority complex is an extreme expectation that one will fail in the tasks of life that can lead to pessimistic resignation and an assumed inability to overcome difficulties. Feeling of community Translated variably from the German, Gemeinschaftsgefuehl can mean community feeling, social interest, social feeling, or social sense. Feeling of community is a 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 is experienced as a deep feeling of belonging to the human race and empathy with fellow men and women. At the cognitive level, it is experienced as a recognition of interdependence with others, i.e., that the welfare of any one individual ultimately depends on the welfare of everyone. At the behavioral level, these thoughts and feelings can then be translated into actions aimed at self-development as well as cooperative and helpful movements directed toward others. Thus, at its heart the concept of "feeling of community" encompasses individuals' full development of their capacities, a process that is both personally fulfilling and results in people who have something worthwhile to contribute to one another. Withdrawal In cases of discouragement the individual, feeling unable to unfold a real and socially valid development, erects a fantasy of superiority - what Adler termed "an attempt at a planned final compensation and a (secret) life plan" - in some backwater.... Discover the Ichiro Kishimi Fumitake Koga popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Ichiro Kishimi Fumitake Koga books.