Individual psychology and the inferiority complex

2021 ◽  
pp. 75-94
Author(s):  
David Cohen
2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ankit Patel

Alfred Adler was an Austrian doctor and therapist who is best-known for forming the school of thought known as individual psychology. He is also remembered for his concept of the inferiority complex, which he believed played a major part in the formation of personality. Alder was initially a colleague of Sigmund Freud, helped establish psychoanalysis, and was a founding member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Adler’s theory focused on looking at the individual as a whole, which is why he referred to his approach as individual psychology. Adler was eventually expelled from Freud’s psychoanalytic circle, but he went on to have a tremendous impact on the development of psychotherapy. He also had an important influence on many other great thinkers including Abraham Maslow and Albert Ellis.


1983 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-72
Author(s):  
Ravenna Helson

2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-199
Author(s):  
KATHRYN WALLS

According to the ‘Individual Psychology’ of Alfred Adler (1870–1937), Freud's contemporary and rival, everyone seeks superiority. But only those who can adapt their aspirations to meet the needs of others find fulfilment. Children who are rejected or pampered are so desperate for superiority that they fail to develop social feeling, and endanger themselves and society. This article argues that Mahy's realistic novels invite Adlerian interpretation. It examines the character of Hero, the elective mute who is the narrator-protagonist of The Other Side of Silence (1995) , in terms of her experience of rejection. The novel as a whole, it is suggested, stresses the destructiveness of the neurotically driven quest for superiority. Turning to Mahy's supernatural romances, the article considers novels that might seem to resist the Adlerian template. Focusing, in particular, on the young female protagonists of The Haunting (1982) and The Changeover (1984), it points to the ways in which their magical power is utilised for the sake of others. It concludes with the suggestion that the triumph of Mahy's protagonists lies not so much in their generally celebrated ‘empowerment’, as in their transcendence of the goal of superiority for its own sake.


Author(s):  
Rósa Magnúsdóttir

Enemy Number One tells the story of Soviet propaganda and ideology toward the United States during the early Cold War. From Stalin’s anti-American campaign to Khrushchev’s peaceful coexistence, this book covers Soviet efforts to control available information about the United States and to influence the development of Soviet-American cultural relations until official cultural exchanges were realized between the two countries. The Soviet and American veterans of the legendary 1945 meeting on the Elbe and their subsequent reunions represent the changes in the superpower relationship: during the late Stalin era, the memory of the wartime alliance was fully silenced, but under Khrushchev it was purposefully revived and celebrated as a part of the propaganda about peaceful coexistence. The author brings to life the propaganda warriors and ideological chiefs of the early Cold War period in the Soviet Union, revealing their confusion and insecurities as they tried to navigate the uncertain world of the late Stalin and early Khrushchev cultural bureaucracy. She also shows how concerned Soviet authorities were with their people’s presumed interest in the United States of America, resorting to monitoring and even repression, thereby exposing the inferiority complex of the Soviet project as it related to the outside world.


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