Introduction

Individual Psychology is a mature psychological system with a wide range of concepts. From the beginning, Adler wanted his approach to be easily understood by "the common man," and so used words and ideas which were familiar to the average person. For example, his concept of sibling rivalry was already familiar from the biblical stories of Cain’s jealous murder of his brother, Abel (Genesis 4:8-16), as well as from Joseph’s mistreatment by his brothers (Genesis 37:2-4, 17-24).

Adler also described personality shaping situations that were familiar from daily life. In the family constellation he pointed out the many ways the family and its interactions influence the developing personality, both in the roles parents play, and the positions of the siblings. In "family atmosphere" he pointed out the uniqueness of each family's ways and the atmosphere so produced, and the influence on all the family members. Of course we know the latter as "sibling position" which includes the characteristics of each child (first-born, second-born/middle, last-born, only) and how they influence the adult in later years. Thus his approach, because of its clarity and "common sense" terminology, appealed to a wide range of people beyond the medical profession.

Indeed, he purposefully went outside the established medical order and took his ideas directly to people through not only his clear writings, but his many talks, often to several thousand people at a time. One of his books (The Science of Living) is said to have started the so-called "psychological self-help movement."

Some of his concepts went against the grain of the then-current psychology, couched as it was in the scientific approach and the "medical model" of his day. The sciences were in thrall to the classical Newtonian understanding of the physical realm: it was the Age of Mechanism, and the physical world was seen as a machine. Everything could be explained by physics, from the rotation of planets to the behavior of individuals and nations. In psychology, the mind was also seen as a machine, turning out dreams and thoughts and neuroses based on its material origins.

But the new century brought new ideas: "Planck’s Constant" in 1900 to describe discontinuities between heat energy absorption and light energy emissions (the "birth" of quantum physics); Einstein’s discovery of the "first" quantum (later called a photon) in 1905; Einstein’ Theory of General Relativity in 1909; and Werner Heisenberg’s "Principle of Indeterminism" ("The Uncertainty Principle") in 1926, in which it was shown that one cannot observe both the motion and the location of quantum objects at the same time. We can know only one or the other. And even more perplexing (as later theoretical physicists argued), is that the existence of quantum objects seems to depend on observation; that they seem to come into existence by being observed!

The psychology of Adler’s time was wedded to the same science of mechanics on which physics rested. In it, past causes explained present problems, heredity and environment being the principal "causes" of personality. As Wolf says in his explanation of quantum physics for the non-scientist,

By the end of the nineteenth century, classical physics had become not only the model for the physical universe, but the model for human behavior as well. The wave of mechanical materialism, which began as a small ripple in the stream of seventeenth-century thought, had grown to tidal wave proportions. Physicists investigated dead things and physicians sought clockworks in living people. (Wolf, p. 46). Even mind itself must ultimately prove to be nothing more than an extremely complex mechanical device. Since mind must come from matter, what else could it be? Indeed, mind must show itself as a direct outcome of its material base. So thought Sigmund Freud. (P. 45)

Adler, however, took a different view: While heredity and environment had their influences on personality (how could they not?), he believed a third factor was just as important: the individual’s own choices in life. So Adler spoke of "soft determinism," in which the effects of heredity and environment are modified by personal decisions. He did not invent the concept of choice, of course; he was, however, the first to establish it as an important part of personality development. (See William Glasser's book, Choice Theory: A New Psychology of Personal Freedom, for an approach to the importance of choice much like Adler's. Also Lazarus' own comments on this in the article by Michael Nystul and Michael Shaughnessy, "An Interview with Arnold Lazarus," in Individual Psychology (Journal of Individual Psychology), 50:3, 372-385, 1994.)

Also different from others and their mechanistic ways (such as Freud, who likened personality to a steam engine!) Adler saw the person not as a collection of parts or pieces (here a leg, there an arm...) but as a totality of interconnected aspects. (The idea is not new. St. Paul used the concept of the interconnectness of body parts in describing the early church as "the body of Christ.")

Adler also believed that personality itself was not "set" or "determined" once and for all, the child being but a miniature adult, but is always in the process of development as a result of experiences, actions, and personal choices. Therefore the life of a person is not to be viewed as set forever at birth, but is seen as a movement through life, decisions leading in new directions. In a sense, then, as quantum physics introduced the "uncertainty principle," we could say that Adler introduced something similar into the field of psychology: That by a person simply considering his or her self is to change the self!

If Adler had a weakness (other than being a person of his own time and place) it was that he did not present his approach as systematically as he could have. Or at least as many Adlerians would have liked! Thus, there is no single place where he articulated his concepts. He left that to others. To compound things, he also changed his concepts from time to time, as he and his psychology grew, or used different words for much the same concept. An example of this is his use of "life style," as well as "life patterns" to mean the same.

The following two sections (Major Topics and Other Adlerian Ideas) describe his concepts as defined in various sources. The Major Concepts are especially important to understand; many of those in the "other" section are also key to understanding Adler's ideas. There probably won't be many surprises. Adler’s ideas have become the basis for much of modern psychology in the years since he proposed them. Even if the psychologist or psychotherapist, or the knowledgeable lay-person, didn't know the origin of the concept was Adler, they will still nod and say, "Yes, I knew that…"

Click on the concepts below to go directly to the article about them: