Adler's Individual Psychology and Related Methods

Adler, Alfred - the psychiatrist whose influential system of individual psychology introduced the term inferiority feeling/complex. He developed a flexible, supportive psychotherapy to direct those emotionally disabled by inferiority feelings toward maturity, common sense, and social usefulness.

Adler maintained a strong awareness of social problems, and this served as a principal motivation in his work. From his earliest years as a physician he stressed consideration of the patient in relation to his total environment, and he began developing a humanistic, holistic approach to human problems.

Adler explored psychopathology within the context of general medicine and in 1902 became associated with Sigmund Freud. Gradually, differences between the two became irreconcilable, notably after the appearance of Adler's Study of Organ Inferiority and Its Psychical Compensation, in which he suggested that persons try to compensate psychologically for a physical disability and its attendant feeling of inferiority.