Much of Adler's psychoanalysis can be seen not only as a rejection of Freud's overemphasis on sexuality, but as a rejection of the conflict model of personality. Adler preferred a fulfillment model of personality, which posits an innate, teleological drive to strive to perfection. Adler's fulfillment model highlights another significant divergence from Freud - where Freud sees man as a passive creature, Adler sees him as an active agency.

"We cannot think, feel, will or act without the perception of some goal"

As Adler rejected the Conflict model, how did he come to view conflict? He believed that conflict mainly arose from discrepancies between poorly formulated unconscious intentions and more clearly understood conscious ideas. He also saw conflict arising over the means of pursuing our goals - which placed much of conflict totally within awareness.

When any of these conflicts exist, they may lead to inconsistent behavior. However such conflicts can be resolved when the poorly formulated intentions are brought to light.

The evolution of Adler's Motivation Theory - Striving to Superiority

Adler saw the core tendency of mankind as a striving to overcome inferiority, a line of thought that lead to his famous concept of the existence in each of us of an Inferiority complex. The conception of the inferiority complex changed how Adler viewed psychoanalysis, for example - unlike Freud's psychosexual explanation of the Oedipus complex, Adler felt that boys sought to reduce their feelings of inadequacy through psychical conquest of their fathers. In general, these feelings of inferiority did not directly decide the direction of our life line - they could either overwhelm a person, or drive a person to better themselves, depending upon how an individual adapted to this drive. Therefore, Adler felt that people had a choice in life and illustrated it in whether they strove for perfection.

Why should the same stimulus motivate in one person, and crush the other? Where is the difference in psychological makeup? The answers to these questions lied in the presumption that people were highly idiosyncratic - every person had a unique active construction of reality.

Adler's concept of the origins of feelings of inferiority, and the strivings they inspire, evolved over the course of his career. At first, the Inferiority complex followed the medical model, and evolved from Adler's understanding of physiology. He focused on organ inferiority. Adler postulated that feelings of inferiority came from our physiological "Achilles heel", a weak or relatively weak organ, or outright organic pathology. This weakness created dis-equilibrium that was either compensated (developing strength in other areas) or overcompensated (converting weakness into strength). Chris Monte questions whether this thought evolved from the fact that Adler himself was what is professionally known as a "nimrod", a nerdy twerp who wore glasses.

However it came about, Adler came to see that a biologically determined psychology could not provide a good working model for personality, and moved from this position. Adler felt that the influence of social factors alone indicated that other forces were at work on personality. And at this time Adler began to learn about Freud; the possible influence of psychological forces on personality began to intrigue him.

The next step - A "Will to power"

The medical model of the inferiority complex, based on the purported need for "maintenance of biological homeostasis" was replaced by teleology as the basic motivating principle. Teleology is an innate guiding force towards maturation. This new view states that out of the many factors leading to feelings of inferiority, a person develops a particular focus for his or her compensatory efforts to overcome this inferiority - the goal. And this goal was particularly intriguing for Adler, for it moved motivation from a biologically determined drive, coming from our past, into a guiding force that lead us into the future. This change meant that he viewed man's self agency as "active", meaning that he believed that we can initiate and choose actions, and that we have free will.

The prototype construct was used to portray an individual's goal direction. It was formed between ages 5-7 and consisted of a person's basic goal in life, and some strategy for attaining that goal. It was largely unarticulated - Adler's term for the unconscious, but it directed the person's life by laying out a person's unique "law of movement" or manner of interpreting and dealing with the world. Once the prototype was established, the person's behavior and sense of meaning in life were determined by it.

To Adler, at this point in his career, the goals were largely self interest - based on Nietzsche's will to power. The individual was seen as compensating for inferiority feelings by striving to gain superiority over others.

Adler began to be bothered by the selfishness implied in this model, and wondered if compensation could also lead one to altruistic goals.

Fictional Finalism - a Philosophical Psychology (See Ego Ideal)

Adler now wanted to add some idiosyncratic and subjective flavor to his personality theory. Adler was influenced at this point by Kurt Vaihinger, (see Vaihinger), the writer of "The Philosophy of As If". Vaihinger was an admirer of Nietzsche, yet he responded to Nietzsche's famous quote "God is Dead" by stating "We may still behave AS IF God is alive." - i.e., illusions could still serve us in life. Kant also stated that all we could ever know is our own subjective awareness (We can never know things in themselves.)

Like Vaihinger, Adler felt that people required illusions. Adler was an existentialist in the vein of Nietzsche and Camus - he felt that life was inherently purposeless. A purposeless life could still have meaning - as long as it was self chosen by the individual (See Nietzsche). He therefore stated that people create mental fictions called Fictional Final goals - this was a person's worldview and the worldview chosen decided whether a person would trust, or distrust the world.

Once a worldview is chosen, a lifestyle derives from it - a lifestyle needs to contain social interest. The job of a therapist is to correct mistaken lifestyles, those not possessing social interest or "Gemeinschaftsgefuhl", and help one change their worldview.

Adler at this point felt that the ego was independent of the id, and felt that a creative self, or a free will existed.

However, Adler still was distressed over this theory. He thought it would be easy to interpret fictions as "errors", suggesting that people tended to direct their behavior through somehow dysfunctional goals - making his theory closer to a description of pathology. As he still wised to focus his theory on normal behavior (just as Freud did) he decided to move away from this philosophical model.

Social Interest and striving for perfection.

Adler gave up the philosophical relativisim of the fictional construction of reality and focused on an absolute value which he viewed as definitive of normality. Adler was driven by the horrors of WWI to find a way to devote his psychology towards fostering cooperation and caring for his fellow man.

GEMEINSCHAFTSGEFUHL - GESUNDHEIT!

Adler had found his empirical and clearly definable solution in gemeinschaftsgefuhl - people drove towards healthy social interaction. He defined gemeinschaftsgefuhl in german alone - so English translations are difficult. However, we can recognize this concept as:

a profound caring about others
a positive feeling towards others
the desire to improve the world
healthy social interaction

Adler now theorized that the child's protype would develop into a style of life defined as: "a pattern of characteristics determined by feelings of inferiority and consequent compensatory efforts, involving habits and traits resulting from the latter; the expression of the superiority/perfection tendency over time. It is the style of life which will give consistent direction to behavior over the course of a person's lifetime."

This style of life can also be called lifestyle. This style of life can either be constructive, focused on social interest - leading to normality and striving to perfection or it can be destructive, involving some deficiency in social interest, pathological, and striving to Superiority without the concern, or at the expense, of others. A destructive lifestyle could also be referred to as "neurotic."

Adler's Defensive Functioning (and gender)

Since Adler rejected the conflict model, there were not ego defenses against the Id. Instead, the Ego must defend against external threats to self esteem. The most common defenses were compensation and overcompensation - which is excessive striving for superiority based on unusually strong feelings of inferiority. To further cement his differing view of defensives from Freud, Adler usually used the term safeguarding strategy instead.

Gender - another large divergence from Freud.

Another safeguarding strategy found by Adler is protest, a construct related to overcompensation. Protest refers to a situation where individuals who feel unprepared for some desired goal overreact to this perception by speaking about the goal excessively and prominently or trying to act as though they had been able to achieve it.

The most interesting form of this protest for Adler was masculine protest, a form displayed by both men and women. Masculine protest is a macho stance that devalues feminine traits. Adler felt this originated socially, due to society's overvaluation of male traits.

By taking this modern position, Adler was saying that devaluation of women was a socially determined, learned attitude, unrelated to biology. Freud's response was that attitudes to women are biologically determined - one needs to simply note that young children view females as inferior prior to any socializing - based on their awareness of the "castration" of females.

And we consider Adler the dummy today.

Developmental Theory

Adler agreed with Freud that early experiences had a significant impact on personality development. Yet he differed greatly in what these influences were. Adler was in short very holistic, and rejected Freud's reductionist zonal emphasis on development. Again, he was also less deterministic than Freud in his later career. However, like a good psychoanalyst, he felt that personality and lifestyle was pretty much set by age 5, and unlikely to change much - although in his view, change was more likely than in Freud's view - since lifestyle choice is self determined, rather than biologically formed.

In his theory: Adler focused on interpersonal relationships and not internal ID drives. For example, Adler's interpretation of the Oedipal complex was on the competition between boy and father. He also focused on play activity as important preparation for adult life, and as a shaper of gender roles.

This difference was due to his view of social interest and interaction as being key to mental health.

Adler had a more lifespan oriented take on development than Freud. He found the "latency" years more important than Freud, because this was typically the time of growing friendships.

Early Development - The family - family constellation and family atmosphere.

Family constellation - birth order

The oldest child - resents being "dethroned" by siblings
Second child - Never suffers from being dethroned - therefore more of a socializer. The second child benefits from having a "pacemaker" to stimulate his growth. This is a great boon because a pacemaker represents a clearly identifiable goal!
Youngest child - the most secure in receiving affection, has many pacemakers, tends to be pampered, and may have excessive ambition (in order to "catch up" to older siblings)
Only child - worst off overall, pampered, limited in social interest

Family Atmosphere

again, the terms constructive and destructive were used. Constructive families were cooperative, trusting and respectful. They created active children who could initiate behaviors as well as follow instructions. Destructive families were critical or pampering. They created passive children, who were docile.

Typologies from this development

Adler resisted typologies due to his need to see people as unique. However, he was deeply influenced in his early biological days by Galen's four humors, and this continued to permeate his psychology. He therefore postulated four general types:

Avoiding Type - Low social interest, low activity, destructive family atmosphere - In Galen's typologies this was the Melancholic type.

Socially Useful Type - High in social interest, constructive family atmosphere, high activity - In Galen's typologies this was the Sanguine type.

The Ruling Type - Low social interest, destructive family, high in activity - In Galen's typologies this was the Choleric type.

The Getting Type - moderate social interest, somewhat destructive family life, low in activity - In Galen's typologies this was the Phlegmatic type.

A person's style of life indicated pathology. The neurotic had a strong inferiority complex, a lack of courage and low social interest. All neurotics demonstrate antithetic schemes of perceiving reality - or rigidly held dichotomized world views. In short, they never evolve cognitively past being children. The neurotic then plays one diametrically opposed side against another, uses excuses to avoid appearing cowardly, and uses tricks to gain advantage over others in social interactions. In neurotics, the lifeline becomes a "lifelie", and involves a fictional struggle of superiority over others.

"The Neurotic is nailed to the cross of his own fiction"

Psychotherapy

Aims

The therapist must correct the lifelie by helping the patient view reality and accept his responsibilities. Superiority mechanisms must be confronted and shattered. Social interest must be fostered. How is this achieved exactly?

Insight

- providing the client understanding of the nature of life mistakes
- Education from the therapist

Technique

In general, the Adlerian is far more active and directive than the Freudian.

The Adlerian uses:

Technique of comparative empathy - therapist must put himself in the place of the patient (compare to humanism) and collaborate with the patient in clarifying and resolving the patient's lifelies.

Technique of eliciting memories - Try to remember earliest memories - the ones most available to recall are the MOST vital to one's formation of style of life.

Conclusion: Personal assessment: I personally find it amazing how much more in tune with modern times Adler is over Freud, and question whether it is only a personal antipathy against Adler as a "nebbish" that has lead to his rather sad standing in psychology today.

It is appropriate to end the psychoanalytical section with Adler, since his work was a precursor of the humanistic and existential psychology sections that follow.