Alfred Adler Books

An Austrian psychiatrist, one of the pioneers of the psychoanalytic school, developed important theories regarding the motives of human behavior. He sees that the main force of human activity in general is nothing but a struggle to achieve sublimity and perfection. Adler initially referred to this power as a drive toward power, but more recently he called it the struggle for status. He called his school of thought individual psychology. Nowadays, this school is sometimes referred to as Adlerian psychology. It was stated in Adler's writings that each person experiences a feeling of inferiority, and Adler believes that each individual strives to overcome such feelings according to specific and selected goals. He states that everyone also has their own unique way of trying to achieve these goals. Adler used the term lifestyle, which means the goals of the individual and the ways he uses to achieve those goals. He also claims that the way of life becomes established by the age of four or five, and believes that the personality of the individual and his conception of the world reflect his way of life. Adler emphasized the importance of social forces in determining behavior. He believed that each individual was born with a characteristic called social interest, which enables the individual to relate to the rest of the people. It places the social interest above self-interest. Adler's ideas have become part of psychiatric theory and applications. Adler was born in Vienna, Austria, and earned a master's degree from the University of Vienna in 1895. He was an ophthalmologist and a neurologist before becoming a psychiatrist. Adler also worked with the famous Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud from 1902 to 1911. In the period between 1919 and 1934 AD. Adler established childhood guidance clinics in Vienna and also trained teachers. He worked with parents and supervised teachers' activities for learning how to nurse children with disorders. In 1934, Adler moved to New York.