Term Paper on "Alfred Adler and His Theory of an Individuals Neurosis"

Term Paper 4 pages (1237 words) Sources: 6 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Adler

Alfred Adler: Neurosis

Although he first formulated his theories of neurosis and the human personality during the turn of the century, the psychological approach of Alfred Adler is even more relevant to today's societal climate. Alder stressed the need for persons to find a sense of future-directed, goal-oriented and authentic selfhood, located in a larger societal community. As modern society becomes increasingly isolated, and people spend more time in solitude on their computers rather than connecting to their communities, the Adlerian approach is more, rather than less important to use than it was when Adler first conceived of his new approach to therapy.

Additionally, Adlerian's stress on the need to vanquish one's false, idealized or fictive self is important to keep in mind in a world where self-perfection, or the idea that one's better self and true happiness will come after the latest make-over, or through buying the newest consumer product, is a helpful approach to take in gaining a more balanced perspective upon modern life.

Neurosis: The modern condition of isolation and dissatisfaction

Like Freud, Alfred Adler viewed neurosis as one of the core problems of modern human beings. Unlike Freud, Adler rejected the idea that sexual conflict alone was the root of all human psychological angst. Sexuality was only one of many sources of human problems, not the core problem that defined all other problems. Adler formally broke with Freud's psychoanalytic approach in 1911. He believed that the feelings of helplessness during childhood arose not from Oedipal conflicts, or parental-child tension, but that the general sense of a lack of agency in childhood frequently led to an inferiority complex. ("Alfred Adler," 2006, Psicafe) It is this part of Adler's view of personality that has entered the modern psychoanalytic and vernacular argot or language.

Inferiority Complex

The use of the word complex later gained acceptance to denote the group of emotionally toned ideas, partially or even wholly repressed, organized around and related to such feelings of inferiority. The term inferiority complex has lost much of its significance through imprecise popular misuse -- for example, as an inappropriately facile explanation of any show of ambition by a person of less-than-average height." ("Inferiority Complex," 2006, Encyclopedia Britannica) Adler described the complex as a client's general feelings of lack of self-worth. "We all wish to overcome difficulties. We all strive to reach a goal by the attainment of which we shall feel strong, superior, and complete," and when this goal is not met, then a sense of inferiority in relation to other people arose. (Fischer, 2001) Often, to mask an inferiority complex on an unconscious level, persons develop a consciously manifested superiority complex. "This complex developed when a person tried to conquer their inferiority complex by suppressing their existing feelings," Adler "felt that people were constantly trying overcome their feelings of inferiority to reach superiority." (Fischer, 2001)

Social influences on personality

The inferiority complex is relational, and thus located in society rather than within the individual, like the Freudian ego, id, and superego. The person feels inferior to the false ideal self, and to others whom he or she believes have achieved ideal selfhood. Thus, rather than focusing on the family romance, like Freud, Adler focused on the impact of social forces on a patient's personality development. "We are in the very midst of a community and must live by the logic of communal existence. This logic determines the fact that we need certain known criteria for the evaluation of our fellows. The degree to which social feeling has developed in any individual is the only universally valid criterion of human values. We cannot deny our psychological dependency upon social feeling. No human being is capable of ignoring her… READ MORE

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