Autobiography & Field of Research

Alfred Adler was born on February 7th 1870 in Vienna Austria. He was the second out of seven children of a Hungarian born grain merchant. As a child he developed rickets and was unable to walk until the age of four. At the age of five he was diagnosed with pneumonia and the doctors told him he wouldn’t survive.

His childhood experiences are what lead him into deciding to become a physician or medical doctor. At the University of Vienna medical school, he trained as a medical doctor and became certified in 1895 and worked as an ophthalmologist. Adler then took interest in psychology because it had a connection with physical disorders.

In 1899, he met a famous psychologist well known as Sigmund Freud. Together they both formed the Vienna psychoanalytic society, with Adler as president. Later he became a lecturer and spent time in the United State teaching and lecturing. On May 28, 1937, Alfred Adler died due to heart failure while on a lecture tour in Aberdeen Scotland.

Contribution to Psychology

Alfred Adler contributed to psychology by developing his own theories and writing books defining his ideas in 1912. He’s responsible for the motivation of human behaviour theories.

He introduced the term “inferiority complex” which he provided the distinctions between the primary and secondary of individual’s inferiority feelings of their dependency, helplessness and weakness. He also developed psychotherapy to support and direct those who are emotionally disabled throughout their common sense, inferiority feelings towards maturity and social usefulness.

Adler had many child guidance clinics that he organized in Vienna. He also contributed by founding a school of psychology called “individual psychology”. Adler’s theories and practices influenced and shaped the way psychiatry is today.

Interesting Facts

Alfred disagreed with some of Sigmund Freud’s theories such as the belief that sex is the fundamental drive that determines human’s behaviors. Also male and female are the main factors in the development of an individual’s personality.

Adler’s disagreement became public in the psychoanalytic congress, which led him to leave the group to found his own school and name it the Society of Individual Psychology in 1911. In 1932 he had his clinics taken away by the Nazis due to his Jewish background.

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