Major Adlerian Concepts:
12. Meaning

Fundamental to the Life Style is meaning, which is and cannot be imposed from without, but which must be decided from within. We speak of it in terms of the meaning for oneself which are attributed to otherwise objective events in one’s life. Thus the meaning of an event is not "the meaning of the event" but "the meaning of the event for me." The original event in every life is the natural inferiority of infancy and young childhood, to which the child must find personal meaning. Adler says that such meaning is found, in general, in a "will to power," that is, in the early establishment of the goal of superiority; and in specific (that is, in The Problem of childhood), in The Solution which the child poses for him or her self as an adult to successfully conclude. In What Life Should Mean To You, he said:

The goal of superiority, with each individual, is personal and unique. It depends upon the meaning he gives to life; and this meaning is not a matter of words. It is built up in his style of life and runs through it like a strange melody of his own creation….The greatest part of his meaning must be guessed at; we must read between the lines. So, to, with that profoundest and most intricate creation, an individual style of life. The psychologist must learn to read between the lines, he must learn the art of appreciating life-meanings. It could not be otherwise. The meaning of life is arrived at in those first four or five years of life; and it is not arrived at my a mathematical process, but by dark gropings, by feelings not wholly understood, by catching at hints and fumbling for explanations. (Adler, 1931, pp. 57-58)

In this sense, then, Adler proposes to answer the question "What is the meaning of life?" in highly personal terms. There is no universal answer which fits everyone, but a highly personal and subjective meaning which each individual discovers for themselves. The individual posits that meaning in terms of the Fictional Final Goal, and the Life Style, with its Guiding Goal and Guiding Line, is the means by which it is carried out.

"Meaning" is not usually included in any list I've seen of the top ten or dozen Adlerian concepts.Yet without it, so much of Adler's philosophy and psychology would not make sense. It is at the core of his approach to what we might call "freedom of will" and his concepts of "soft determinism," "psychology of use," and "apperceptive schema" or the "subjectivity of perception."