Adler, Alfred
Adler, Alfred
(1870-1937) Originally a follower of Freud (see Psychoanalysis; Freud), he founded his own school in Vienna about 1912. In contrast to Freud, he tended to minimize the role of sexuality and to place greater emphasis on the ego. He investigated the feelings of inferiority resulting from organic abnormality and deficiency and described the unconscious attempt of the ego to compensate for such defects. (Study of Organic Inferiority and its Psychical Compensations, 1907). He extended the concept of the “inferiority complex” to include psychical as well as physical deficiencies and stressed the tendency of “compensation” to lead to over-correction. (The Neurotic Constitution, 1912; Problems of Neurosis, 1930.) — L.W.