The individual psychology was developed by Austrian psychiatrist Alfred Adler (1870-1937). Adler started his career by closely working with Sigmund Freud, but gradually rejected Freud’s approach, especially the importance that Freud attributed to the role that sex and sexual conflicts had in causing neurosis in an individual. Alder first presented his approach in the book  The Neurotic Constitution (in German 1912) and elaborated on it in Understanding Human Nature (in German 1927). Individual psychology argues that the majority of people are motivated by and are striving to achieve „superiority“. This superiority can manifest itself in goals like self-realization, completeness, or perfection. People who strive for superiority can become frustrated by feelings of, inadequacy, inferiority, or incompleteness that stem from low social status, physical disability or problems, over neglect or overcare during childhood, etc. People can compensate for their feelings of inferiority in a positive or in a negative way. The positive way is to develop skills and abilities; and the negative way is to develop an inferiority complex that will dominate behavior or to overcompensate and develop egocentric, self-aggrandizing, and power-hungry behavior.  

Every person develops his or her individual personality, or what Adler termed „lifestyle “. Lifestyle is formed in early childhood and is impacted by specific way inferiority affected some people during that period of life. Motivation for superiority is not the only one, because there is also a „social interest“, a motivation to cooperate with others for the common good. The mentally healthy person possesses reason, social interest, and “self-transcendence”; while the mentally unhealthy person exhibits inferiority, self-centredness, and a feeling of superiority. The aim of psychotherapist, in individual psychology, is to point to the patient to his specific unsuccessful attempts to cope with feelings of inferiority and to point him or her to more realistic goals and beneficial types of behavior.

Books:

Adler, Alfred. The Neurotic Constitution (2013, in German 1912);

     -     Understanding Human Nature (2010, in German 1927);

     -     What Life Should Mean to You (1931).