hello and welcome to the fourth lesson in our course theories of personality now this man right here is alfred ander an austrian physician and psychiatrist is best known for forming the school of thought known as individual psychology so he also had an important influence on many other great thinkers including that of abraham maslow karen hornai and albert ellis so adler was initially a colleague of sigmund freud and he helped establish psychoanalysis and was a founding member of the vienna psychoanalytic society in fact when people inquired upon adler's early relationship with freud he would always show an old postcard containing freud's invitation to adler to join freud and three other physicians to meet at freud's home the following thursday evening in which cl freud closed the invitation saying with hearty greetings as your colleague however as noted by feist and feist their warm association came to a bitter ending with both of them hurling caustic remarks at each other during the acrimonious breakup between the two men freud even accused adler of having paranoid delusions and of using terrorist attacks so he told one of his friends that the revolt by adler was that of an abnormal individual driven mad by ambition of course alfred adler was not a terrorist nor a person driven by mind ambition in fact his individual psychology present an optimistic view of people while resting heavily on a feeling of openness with all humankind in addition to adler's more optimistic look at people several other differences made the relationship between freud and adler quite uh ten woos first freud reduced all motivations to sex and aggression whereas adler like hume thought that sex and aggression are not the only source of motivation adler saw people as being motivated mostly by social influences and by their striving for either superiority or success second freud assumed that people have little or no choice in shaping their personality whereas adler believed that people are largely responsible for who they are and what they do third freud's assumption that percent behave that present behavior is caused by past experiences was directly opposed to anders notion that present behavior is shaped by people's view of the few of the future and and and fourth in contrast to freud who placed very heavy emphasis on unconscious components of behaviors and their belief that psychologically healthy people are usually aware of what they are doing and why they are doing it as noted earlier adler was an original uh of the wednesday psychology society however when uh theoretical and personal differences between adler and freud emerged adler left the freudian circle and establish an opposing theory which became known as individual psychology so in this video we are going to talk about the life and works of alfred adler we will finish it with a critique of anders theory by looking into his concept of humanity so alfred adler was born on february 7 1870 in a rudolf heim a village near vienna his mother pauline was a hard-working homemaker who kept busy with her seven children and his father leopold was a middle uh class jewish green merchant from hungary so as a young boy adler was weak and sickly and at the age of five he nearly died of pneumonia he had gone ice skating with an older boy who abandoned him cold and shivering he or adler managed to find his way home where he immediately fell asleep on the living room couch as adler gradually gained consciousness he heard a doctor say say to his parent give yourself no more trouble this boy is lost this experience along with the death of a younger brother motivated ander to become a physician so um and there's poor health was in sharp contrast to that to the health of his older brother segment and several of his um adler's earliest memories were concerned with unhappy competition between his brother's good health and his own illness sigmund adler the childhood rival whom adler attempted to surpass remained a worthy opponent and in later years he became a very successful uh businessman and even uh helped adler financially so by almost any standard however and alfred adler was much more famous than sigmund adler like many second born children however other continued uh the rivalry with his older brother into the into middle age so uh the lives of freud and adler have several interesting parallels although both men came from middle or lower middle class viennese jewish parents neither was devoutly religious however freud was much more conscious of his jewishness than was antler and often believed himself to be persecuted because of his of his jewish background on the other hand adler never claimed to have been mistreated and in 1904 while still a member of freud's inner circle he converted to protestantism uh despite his conversion he held no deep religious convictions and in fact one of his biographer regarded him as agnostic now like freud adler had a younger brother a younger brother who died in infancy this early experience profoundly affected both men in vastly different ways freud by his own account was or had a wished unconsciously for the death of his rival rival and when the infant died freud was filled with guilt and self-reproach conditions that continued into his adulthood in contrast adler would seem to have a more powerful reason to be traumatized by the death of his younger brother rudolph you see at the age of four adler awoke one morning to find rudolph dead in the bed next to his rather than being terrified or feeling guilty adler saw this experience along with his own near death uh from pneumonia as a challenge to overcome death so that's at the age of five he decided that his goal in life would be to conquer death because medicine offered some chance to to forestall death and they decided at that early age to become a physician so although freud was surrounded by a large family including seven younger brothers and sisters two grown half brothers and a nephew and a niece about his age he felt more emotionally attached to his parents especially or primarily to his mother than these other family members in contrast ander was more interested in social relationships and his siblings and actually pierce played a pivotal role in his childhood development personality differences between freud and ander continued throughout adulthood with freud uh preferring intense one-to-one relationship and and they're feeling more comfortable in groups in group situation so these personality differences were also reflected in their professional organizations freud's vienna psychoanalytic society and international psychoanalytic association were highly structured in pyramid fashion with an inner circle of six of freud's trusted friends forming a kind of oligarchy at the top ander by comparison was a more uh democratic individual often meeting with colleagues and friends in vienna uh coffee houses where they played the piano and sang songs and their society of individual psychology in fact suffered from a loose organization and adler had a relaxed attitude towards business details that did not enhance his movements so adler attended elementary school with neither difficulty nor distinction however when he entered the gymnasium in preparation for medical school he did so poorly that his father threatened to remove him from school and apprentice him to shoemaking so as a medical student he once again completed or he completed work with no special honors probably because his interest in patient care conflicted with his professor's interest in precise diagnosis when he received his medical degree near the end of 1855 1895 brother he had realized his childhood goal of becoming a physician so because his father had been born in in hungary uh ander was a hungarian citizen and was thus obliged to serve a tour of military duty in the hungarian army he fulfilled that obligation immediately after receiving his medical degree and then returned to vienna for post-graduate study so adler became an austrian citizen in 1911 so he began private practice as an eye specialist but gave up that specialization and turned into psychiatry and general medicine now scholars disagree on the first meeting of adler and freud but actually all agree that in the late fall of 1902 freud invited adler and three other viennese physicians to attend a meeting in freud's home to discuss psychology and uh neuropathology remember the invitation in the postcard which adler will show people around so this is the same invitation that we are talking about so this group was known as this wednesday psychological society in 1908 when it became the vienna uh psychoanalytic society although freud led these discussion groups adler never considered freud to be his mentor and actually believed uh somewhat naively that he and others could make contributions to psychoanal psychoanalysis contributions that would be accepted acceptable to freud so um so uh around this time along with nine other former members of the freudian circle he formed the society of free psychoanalytics uh study so uh like freud uh adler was affected by events surrounding world war one both men had financial difficulties and both reluctantly borrowed money from relatives freud from his brother-in-law and edward bernays and adler from his brother sigmund so uh each man also made important changes in his theory freud elevated aggression to the level of sex after viewing the horrors of war and adner suggested that social interest and compassion could be the cornerstone of human motivation so the war years also brought a major disappointment to adler when his uh application 444 uh for an unpaid lecture position at the university of vienna was turned out was turned down adner wanted his or this position to gain another forum for spreading his views but he also desperately desired to attain the same uh prestigious position that freud had held for more than a dozen years so ander never attained this position but after the war he was able to advance his theories through lecturing establishing child guidance clinics and training teachers during the last uh several years of his life adler frequently visited the united states where he taught individual psychology at columbia university and the new school for social research so by 1932 he was a permanent resident of the united states and held the possession of visiting professor for medical psychology at long island college of medicine so so unlike freud who disliked americans and their superficial understanding of psychoanalysis adler was impressed by americans and admired their optimism and open-mindedness his popularity as a speaker in the united states during the mid-1930s had few rivals and he aimed his last several books towards a receptive american market so um under mary the fiercely independent russian woman ryze epstein in 19 or in december 18 19 1897 so ryza was an early feminist and much more political than herself than her husband in later years while ander lived in new york she remained mostly in in vienna and worked to promote marxist leninist uh views uh that were quite different from anders notion of individual freedom and and and and responsibility so after several years of request by her husband to move to new york rice uh finally came to stay in new york only a few months before anders death ironically raiza who did not share her husband's love for america continued to leave in new york until her own death nearly a quarter of a century after anders had died and died so so rice and ander had four children alexandra and kurt who became psychiatrists and continued their father's work val valentine or valley who died as a political prisoner of the soviet union in about 1942 and cornelia or nelly who who aspired to be an actress so adler's favorite relaxation was music but he also maintained an active interest in art and literature in his work he often borrowed examples from fairy tales the bible shakespeare yeah and and numerous other literary works he identified himself closely with a common person and his manner and appearance were consistent with that identification his patience included a high percentage of people from the lower and middle classes and a rarity among psychiatrists of his time his personal qualities included an optimistic attitude towards the human condition an intense competitiveness coupled with friendly uh congeniality and a strong belief in the basic gen in in in the basic gender equality which combined with the willingness to forcefully advocate women's rights so from middle childhood until after his 67th birthday andre enjoyed robust health then in the early months of 1937 while concerned with the fate of his daughter valley who had disappeared somewhere in moscow adler felt chest pains while on a speaking tour in netherlands so ignoring the doctor's advice to rest he continued on to aberdeen scotland where on may 28 1937 he died of a heart attack freud who was 14 years older than ander had outlived his longtime adversary on on hearing of others uh death freud as quoted by jones in 1957 sarcastically remarked for a jew boy out of a vienna a viennese suburb a death in aberdeen is an unheard of career in itself and uh proof of how he had uh got on so the world really rewarded him richly for his service in having contradicting psychoanalysis so um so alfred adler had a beautiful theory of human personality so much so that it influenced many succeeding perspectives about the topic although alfred ander had a profound effect on such later theories as haristak sullivan tyrion hornai julian rotter even abraham maslow carl rogers albert ellis roy may and others his name is less well known than that of either freud or carl or carlion so at least three reasons account for this first ander did not establish a tightly run organization to perpetuate his theories second he was not a particularly gifted writer and most of his books were compiled by a series of editors using address others under scattered lectures third many of his views were incorporated in the works of such later theories as maslow's rogers and ellis and thus are no longer associated with anders name so with that let's talk about adler's individual psychology although his writings reveal great insight into the depth and complexities of human personality adler evolved a basically simple and parsimonious theory to adler people are born with weak inferior bodies a condition that leads to feelings of inferiority and a consequent uh dependence on other people therefore a feeling of unity with others that the social interest is inherent in people and the ultimate standard for psychological health more specifically the main tenets of allerian theory can be stated in an outline form like uh like this one so uh this is an adapted for uh was adapted from that list and it represent the final statement of individual psychology so the first dynamic uh we can see here that uh the list goes like the first is that the the one dynamic force behind people's behavior is the striving for superiority or success we will be talking about that later on and that people's subjective perceptions shape their behavior and personality third is that personality is unified and self-consistent fourth is that the value of all human activity must be seen from the viewpoint of social interest five uh the self-consistent personality structure develops into a person's style of life and six is that style of life is molded by people's creative power so uh striving for success or superiority is the first tenet of hungarian theory it states that the one dynamic force as we have mentioned earlier behind people's behavior is the striving for success or superiority ander reduced all motivation to a single drive the striving for success or superiority adler's own childhood was smart by physical deficiencies and strong feelings of competitiveness with his older brother individual psychology holds that everyone begins with life or everyone begins life with physical deficiencies that activate feelings of inferiority feelings that motivate a person to strive for either superiority or success so for him psychologically and healthy individuals strive for personal superiority whereas psychologically healthy people sex success for all humanity early in his career ander believed that aggression was the dynamic power behind all motivation but he soon became dissatisfied with that term after rejecting aggression as a single motivating force ander used the term masculine protest which implied a will to power or or will power or a domination of others so so however he soon abandoned masculine protest as a universal drive while continuing to give it to limited role in his theory of abnormal development next ader called the single dynamic force striving for superiority so in his final theory however he limited striving for superiority to those people who strive for personal superiority over others and introduce the term striving for success to describe actions of people who are motivated by highly developed social interests regardless of the motivation for striving each individual is guided by a final goal and speaking of which uh adler adapted the concept of fiction from uh the as a philosophy of hands uh by hunger um according to ander people strive toward the final goal of either personal superiority or the goal of success for all humanity so remember that psychologically health or rather psychologically unhealthy individuals strive for personal superiority while persons who are psychologically healthy seek success for all humanity in either case the final goal is a fictional and has uh is fictional rather and has no objective existence nevertheless the final goal has great significance because it unifies personality and renders all behaviors comprehensible so uh it's actually the product of the creative power that is it's our ability to freely shape our behaviors and create our own personality so by the time uh children reach four to five years old after four to five years old their creative power has developed to the point that they can set their final goal so for antlers for adler rather even infants of an innate drive towards growth completion or success because infants are small incomplete and weak they feel inferior and powerless and so to compensate for this deficiency they set a fictional goal to be big complete and strong thus a person's final goal reduces the pain of inferiority feelings and points that person in the direction of either superiority or success so if children feel neglected or pampered their goal remains largely unconscious conversely if children experience love and secure insecurity they set a goal that is largely conscious and clearly understood adler hypothesized that in striving for their final goal people create and pursue many preliminary goals these sub goals are often conscious but the connection between them and the final goal usually remains unknown furthermore the relationship among preliminary goals is seldom realized so so from the point of view of the final goal however they fit together in a self-consistent pattern so adler used the analogy of of a playwright who who builds the characteristics and the subplots of of the play according to the final goal of the drama it's like when you write let's say your wattpad or or any story uh you may want to have a final uh goal of the of the story uh and you create your characters and and the subplots uh in accordance with this final goal with this with this uh with this uh story so when the final scene is known all dialogues and even subplots acquire new meaning so so when an individual's final goal is known all actions make sense and some goals take on new significances so if you are let's say uh if you are let's say a fan of fiction you probably uh when you start reading a certain book or watching let's say a new series you might be asking yourself why uh why did the particular character act this way or why did um why is the the the mood or the tone of the story this manner and and at the end at the final act you would probably realize why all these things are important and they would make sense and it's beautiful so um for adler people strive for superiority or success as a means of compensation for feelings of inferiority or weakness and they actually believe that all humans are blessed at birth with small weak and inferior bodies because of this all infants have a feeling of inferiority and inadequacy immediately as they begin to experience the world so these physical deficiencies ignite feelings of inferiority only because people by their nature possess an innate tendency towards completion or wholeness people are continually pushed by the need to overcome inferiority feelings and pulled by the desire for completion so these early experiences such as that such as the need to to gain the parents attention or shape the child's unconscious effective goals so they give the child a need to to strive towards rectifying the inferiority so which is a need to compensate for weakness by developing other strengths so so without the innate movements towards perfection children would never feel inferior but without feelings of inferiority they would never set a goal of superiority or success so the goal then is set as compensation for the deficit feeling but the deficit feeling would not exist unless a child first possesses a basic tendency towards completion so there are several outcomes that can happen on a child's quest for completion first if the child receives adequate nurturing and care the child can accept his challenges and learn that they can be overcome with hard work thus the child develops normally and and develops the courage to be imperfect in his final theory ander identified two general avenues of striving the first is the socially non-productive attempt to gain personal superiority the second involves social interest and is aimed at success or perfection for everyone however sometimes the process of compensation goes problematic one way in which this happens is that uh is that when the feeling of superiority becomes too intense and the child begins to feel as though he has no control over his surroundings he will strive very strenuously or very hard for for for compensation to the point that uh compensation is no longer satisfactory so this culminates in a state of over compensation where the person or the or the child focus on meeting his goal uh is exaggerated and becomes pathological for example adler in 1917 in one of his writings used the ancient greek figure themselves who had a terrible stutter but ended up becoming the great orator of of greece here the messeness uh started off with an inferiority duty stutter and overcompensated by not just uh overcoming his stutter but taking up a profess profession that would normally be impossible for stuttering so over compensation can lead to the development of an inferiority complex this is a lack of self-esteem where the person is unable to rectify his feelings of inferiority so according to ander a hallmark or rather the hallmark of an inferiority complex is that persons are always striving to find a situation in which they excel so this drive is due to their overwhelming feelings of inferiority so according to other there are two components of these feelings of inferiority primary and secondary primary inferiority is the original and normal feeling of inferior of of inferiority maintained by an infant so for adler this feeling is productive as it provides motivation for the child to develop a secondary inferiority on the other hand is the inferiority feeling in the adult results in that adult results when uh when the child develops an exaggerated feelings feeling of inferiority these feelings in the adult are what is harmful and they comprise the inferiority complex so there are two forms of inferiority but only the second form is regarded as the inferiority complex so on the other hand the superiority complex occurs when a person has the need to prove that he is more superior than he truly is adler provided an example of a child who uh uh with a superiority complex who is uh impertinent arrogant and pugnacious so when the child is treated through psychotherapy it is revealed that the child behaves in this impatient manner because he feels inferior adler actually claims that superiority complexes are born out of inferiority complexes they are one of the ways which a person with an inferiority complex may use a method of escape from his difficulties so some people for adders strive for superiority with little or no concern for others their goals are personal ones and and their striving are motivated largely by exaggerating uh feelings of personal inferiority or the presence of an inferiority complex some people create clever disguise for their personal striving and may conscious or consciously hide their self-centeredness behind the cloak of social concern so this can happen when someone uh would show an image that they are concerned with other people but in truth they are really just concerned about themselves like when people would uh help other people and then take pictures of themselves helping the other people and upload it on social media so um in contrast to people who strive for personal gains are those psychologically healthy people who as i have mentioned earlier are motivated by social interest and the success of all humankind so these healthy individuals are concerned with goals beyond themselves and they're capable of helping others without demanding or expecting a personal payoff and are able to see others not as opponents but as people with whom they can cooperate for social benefit so their own success is not gained at the expense of others but is a natural tendency to move towards completion or perfection so people who strive for success rather than personal superiority maintains a sense of self of course but they see daily problems from the view of society's development rather than from a strictly personal vantage point so their sense of personal worth is tied closely to their contributions to human society for them social progress is more important than personal credit so uh a talmudic saying goes that we don't see that we don't see things as they are we see them as we are so this means that our preconceptions can dramatically alter the way we perceive the world in connection with this and their second then it states that people subjective perceptions shape their behavior and personality people strive for superiority or success to compensate for feelings of superiority this we have cleared earlier but the manner in which they strive is not shaped by reality but by their subjective perceptions of reality that is by their by their affections or or expectations of the future speaking of which our most important fiction is the goal of superiority or success a goal we created early in in our lives and may not clearly understand this objective fictional final goal guides our style of life which we'll be talking about later on and gives unity to our personality anders ideas on on fictionalism originated as i have mentioned earlier from hans vine hanger's book uh the philosophy of as if um why heinzer believe that affections are ideas that have no real existence yet they influence people as they really existed so one example of affection might be men are superior to women although this notion is sufficient many people both men and women act as if they it were a reality a second option or example might be humans have free will that enables them to make choices again many people act as if they and others uh have a free will and are thus responsible for their free choice no one can actually prove that free will really exist yet this fiction guides the lives of most of us another example is when marcos apologists would say that uh the the time of marcos is the golden age of the philippines even when there are no empirical evidences to support that claim and there are many uh evidences that that that support the the the opposite of this that we really as a nation plunged into depth uh there are still people who believe that uh it is the golden age of of the philippines so people are motivated not by what is true but by their subjective perception of what is true so uh it might be true that the philippines did not go into uh the golden age but people are would still choose to believe that uh we spent the golden age during those times so another example might be a belief of an omnipotent god who reward goods uh good and unpunished evil such a belief guides the daily lives of millions of people and help shape many of their actions whether true or false fictions have a powerful influence on people's lives adler's emphasis on fiction is consistent with this strongly held healthily a logical view of of motivation ileology is an explanation of behavior as we have mentioned before in terms of its final purpose or aim it's the opposite of causality which considers behavior as a springing from a specific cause teleology is usually concerned with future goals or ends whereas causality ordinarily deals with past experiences that produce some present effects so freud's view of motivation was basically causal he believed that people are driven by past events that activate present behaviors in contrast adler adopted a teleological view one in which people are motivated by present perceptions of the future as fictions these perceptions need not be conscious or actually understood nevertheless they bestow a purpose on all people's actions and are responsible for a consistent pattern that runs throughout their life so uh because people begin la a life small weak and inferior they develop affection or or belief system about how to overcome these physical deficiencies and become big strong and even superior but even after they attain size strength and superiority they may act as if they are still small wick or inferior other insisted that the whole human race is actually blessed with organ inferiorities these physical handicaps have little or no importance by themselves but become meaningful when they stimulate subjective feelings of super of inferiority which serves as an impetus towards a perfection or completion which means that we are motivated to complete ourselves to overcome to compensate because of these inferiorities so other emphasize that physical deficiencies alone do not cause a particular style of life they simply provide present motivation for reaching future goals so so such motivation like all aspects of of personality is unified and self-consistent which we will be talking more about here so uh the third tenet of of allerian theory is personality is unifying and self-consistent adler actually stressed his belief that each person is unique and and indivisible indivisible that is thus individual psychology insists on the hue the the fundamental unity of personality and the notion that inconsistent behavior does not exist thoughts feelings and actions are all directed towards a single goal and serve a single purpose when people behave erratically or unpredictably their behaviors forces other people to be on defensive to be watchful so was not to be confused with capricious actions adler recognizes several ways in which entire persons or entire person operates with unity and and and self-consistency the first is through organ dialect used the term organ dialect or oregon's art jargon or or organ language interchangeably to refer to somatic signs and symptoms that express through veiled uh though veiled an individual's attitudes and opinions organ dialect like other movements of the person is understood as propositive that is whether or not consciously in uh consciously in line with the individual's unique law of movement through organ dialect the body's organ speaks a language which is usually more expressive and discloses the individual's opinion more clearly than words are able to do so the jargon or statement made by the organ is unique and its selection is idiosyncratic which means consistent within the individual's particular organ inferiority or the organs availability as already rehearsed from some as symptomatic expressions so or according to any symbolic meaning the individual has attached to that selected organ one example of organ dialect might be a man suffering from rheumatoid arthritis in his hands uh his stiff and deformed joints voiced his whole style of life it is as if they cry out see my different deformity see my handicap you can't expect me to do manual work uh with even without an audible sound so his hands speak of his desire for for for sympathy from others another example could be two persons may suffer from leg pains that have no basis in organic disease uh the jargon or the dialect of one maybe i can't stand on my own two feet expressing a conviction that he or she must depend on the help of others to meet life's challenges well the jargon of the other may be i can't stand it declaring an inability to endure a particular pressure or or difficult situation so as to the symbolic aspect of the symptom one might discover that the client experiencing hard trouble for which he there is no medical explanation is experiencing heartbreak so a second example of a unified personality is the harmony between conscious and unconscious actions adler defined the unconscious uh as the part of the goal that is neither clearly formulated nor completely understood by the individual so although adler used the word unconscious it's different from the unconscious that was postulated by either freud or carlium for adler the unconscious is the part of the goal that is not very uh comprehensible for the person so with this definition ander actually avoided a dichotomy between the unconscious and the conscious which he saw as two cooperating parts of the same same unified system conscious thoughts are those that are understood and regarded by the individual as helpful in striving for success whereas unconscious thoughts are those that are not helpful so social interest is adler's somewhat misleading translation of his original german term or jamie and shap's fault a better translation might be social feeling or community feeling but jamie and chad's full is actually a meaning that is not fully expressed by any english word or actually phrase roughly it means a feeling of oneness with all humanity it implies membership in the social community of all people it is it's a fundamental sense of being one amongst other people as a fellow human being and if you think about it it's actually close to the filipino concept of capua in other words it's a communal feeling based on a recognition that people lives in a social context are integrated or in our integral part of their family community humanity and even cosmos itself and have a natural necessity to solve social problems and to take social affirmative actions so adler believed that a person with a well-developed jaymen shaftsfool uh strives not for personal superiority but for the perfection for all people in an ideal community social interest is the natural condition of the human species and the adhesive that binds society together the natural inferiority of individuals necessitate their joining together to form a society without protecting or protection and nourishment from a father or a mother a baby would perish without protection from the family or clan our ancestors would have been destroyed by animals that were stronger more ferocious or or or even uh human beings that were not uh that were not homo sapiens or endowed with key inner sense so so social interest therefore is a necessity for uh perpetuating the human species however social interest is only partially inherent in in adaptive uh development and needs to be actively cultivated uh in any individual social interest is rooted as potentially in everyone but it must be developed before it can contribute to a useful style of life it originates from the mother-child relationship during the early months of infancy and every person who has survived in infancy was kept alive by a mothering person who possessed some amount of social interest thus every person has had the seeds a few of social interests sown during their early months other believe that marriage and parenthood is a task for two however the two parents may influence a child's social interest in somewhat different ways the mother's job is so the mother's job for example is to develop a bond that encourages the child's mature social interest and foster a sense of cooperation the father is a second important person in a child's social environment he must demonstrate a caring attitude towards his wife as well as to other people so the ideal father for adler cooperates to an equal footing with the child's mother in caring for the child and treating the child as a human being so a father's emotional detachment in many or rather may influence the development of a a warped sense of social interest a feeling of neglect and possibly a parasitic attachment to the mother a child who experience paternal detachment creates a goal of personal superiority rather than one based on social interest now the second error paternal authoritarianism may also lead to an unhealthy style of life a child who sees the father as a tyrant learns to strive for power and personal superiority and they actually believe that the effects of the early social environment are extremely important the relationship a child has with his mother and the father is so powerful that it smothers the effect of heriote adler believed that at age or after the age five the effect of heredity becomes blurred by the powerful influence of a child's social environment by that time environmental forces have modified or shaped nearly every aspect of a child's personality adler believed uh that that social interest was a yardstick for measuring psychological health and it's thus the soul the soul criterion of human values to adler social interest is the only gauge to use in judging the worth of a person as uh the barometer of of normality and is the standard to be used in every in in determining the usefulness of life to the degree that people possess social interest they are psychologically mature uh immature people lack jaimin shafu and and are self-centered and strive for personal power so so superiority over others and healthy individuals are genuinely concerned about people and have a goal of success that encompasses the well-being of all people and possibly animals too social interest is not synonymous with charity and unselfishness acts of philanthropy and kindness may or may not be motivated by social interest for example a wealthy woman may regularly give large sums of money to the poor and needy not because she feels a oneness with them but quite the contrary because she wishes or rather she wishes to maintain a separateness from them the gift implies you are inferior i am superior and this charity is proof of my superiority other believe that the worth of all such acts can only be judged against the criterion of social interest so adler's fifth tenet is the self is rather is that the self-consistent personality structure develops into a person's style of life now the style of life is that is is the term adler used to refer to the flavor of a person's life it includes a person's goal self-concept feelings for others and attitude towards the world it's the product of the interaction of heredity environment and a person's creative power so a person's style of life is fairly well established by four uh or or by age four or five and after that time all our actions revolve around our unified style of life although the final goal is singular style of life need not be narrow or rigid psychologically unhealthy individuals often need rather inflexible inflexible lives that are marked by an inability to choose new ways of reacting to their environment adler and his followers analyze person style of life by comparing it to socially adjusted human being from that comparison or from these companies on uh rather adler felt he could distinguish four primary types of styles three of them he said uh to be mistaken styles so this includes the ruling type which involves people or aggressive dominating people who don't have much social interest or cultural perception the getting type which are dependent people who take rather than give and avoiding type uh who uh try to escape life's problem and take part in not much socially constructive activity now the fourth uh style of life of life by adler is the socially useful type uh where people who have this style of life have a great deal of social interest and and activity so people with a healthy so healthy socially useful style of life express their social interest through action they actively struggle to solve what other regarded as the three major problems of life neighborly love sexual love and occupation and they do so through cooperation personal courage and a willingness to make contribution to the welfare of another so adler believed that people with a socially useful style of life represents the highest form of humanity in the evolutionary process and are likely to populate the world of the future so adler claimed that once a psychologist knows a person's style of life it is possible to predict his future sometimes just on the basis of talking to him and having him answer questions so the final tenet of alleria theory is style of life is molded by people's creative power so each person other belief is empowered with the freedom to create his or her own style of life ultimately all people are responsible for who they are and how they behave their creative power places them in control of their own lives is responsible for their final goal determines their method of striving for that goal and contributes to the development of social interest in short creative power makes each person a free individual creative power is a dynamic concept implying movement and this movement is the most salient characteristic of life all psychic life involves movement towards a goal movement with a direction other use the interesting analogy which he called the law of the low doorway if you are trying to walk through a doorway four feet high four feet high you have two basic choices first you can use your creative power to bend down as you approach the doorway thereby successfully solving the problem this is the manner in which the psychologically healthy individual solves most of life's problem conversely if you bump your head and fall back fall back you must still solve the problem correctly or continue bumping your head neurotics often choose to bump their heads on the realities of life when approaching the low doorway you're neither compelled to stop nor forced to bump your head you have a creative power that permits you to follow either course or probably a third course if you want to put explosive on the doorway and and and and and uh make uh and make explosions so that you can create a bigger doorway although that part was not uh in the original text of ander so um a second example or or rather for adler small adjustment is defined as a choosing behavior resulting in a lack of social interest or personal growth adler believed that misbehavior would take place when persons had become discouraged or when positive attempts at good behaviors had failed to get the needed results so adler believed that people are what they make themselves they are rather the creative power and those humans within certain limits with the freedom to be either psychologically healthy or unhealthy and to follow either a useful or useless style of life according to adler the one factor underlying all types of male adjustment is underdeveloped social interest so besides lacking social interest neurotics tend to number one set their goals too high number two live in their own private worlds and number three have a rigid and dogmatic style of life these three characteristics follow inevitably from a lack of social interest in short people become failures in life because they are over concerned with themselves and care little about others biologists and people set extravagant goals as an overcompensation for exaggerated feelings of inferiority these lofty goals lead to dogmatic behavior and the higher the goal the more rigid the striving to compensate for deeply rooted rooted feelings of inadequacy and basic insecurities these individuals narrow their perspective and strive compulsively and rigidly for unrealistic goals so the exaggerated and unrealistic nature of neurotic goals set them apart from community uh from the community of other people they approach the problem of friendship sex and occupation from a personal angle that precludes successful solutions so we might ask why do some people create maladjustment adler actually recognized three contributing factors of any of which is sufficient to contribute abnormality the first is exaggerated physical deficiencies people with exaggerated physical deficiencies sometimes develop exaggerated feelings of inferiority because they overcompensate for their inadequacy they tend to be overly concerned with themselves and lack consideration for others they feel as if they are living in enemy territory they fear defeat more than they desire success and are convinced that life's major problems can be solved only in a selfish manner the second is having a pampered style of life now a pampered style of life lies at the heart of most neurosis pampered people have weak social interest but a strong desire to perpetuate their pampered parasitic relationship so they originally had uh with one or both of their parents so they expect others to look after them over protect them and satisfy their needs they are characterized by this extreme discouragement indecisiveness over sensitivity impatience and exaggerated emotions especially anxiety they see the world with private vision and believe that they are entitled to be the first in everything so lastly the third factor in mild adjustment is neglected style of life the third external factor contributing to mal adjustment is neglect children who feel unloved and unwanted are likely to borrow heavily from these feelings in creating a neglected style of life neglect is a relatively it's a relative concept no one feels totally neglected or completely unwanted they uh the fact that that the child survived infancy is a proof that someone actually cared for the child and that the seed of social interest has been planted on them so uh ander also believed that people create patterns of behaviors to protect their exaggerated sense of self or rather self-esteem against public disgrace this are actually similar or these safeguarding tendencies are actually similar to freud's defense mechanism these protective factors or devices called safeguarding tendencies enable people to hide their inflated self-image and to maintain their current style of life anders concept of the safeguarding tendency can be compared again was what i have said earlier to freud's concept concept of defense mechanism freud's defense mechanism operate unconsciously to protect their ego against anxiety whereas hildarian safeguarding tendencies are largely conscious and shield a person's fragile self-esteem from public disgrace also freud's defense mechanisms are common to everyone but adler discussed safeguarding tendencies only with reference to the construction of neurotic symptoms so uh for freud defense mechanisms are employed by everyone but safeguarding tendencies for adlers for other rather are only used in in relation to the construction of neurotic symptoms and the first of these safeguarding tendencies is excuses this is the most common of the safeguarding tendencies which are typically expressed in the yes but or if only format in the yes but excuse people first state that they claim they would like to do something that sound good that sounds good to others then they will follow with an excuse and uh the if only statement is the same excuse phrased in a different way if only my husband were more supportive i would have advanced faster in my profession if only the pandemic has not happened my i would have been well uh on my career if only i did not have this physical deficiencies i could compete successfully for a job if only i am able to wake up early then i can uh exercise these excuses protect a weak but artificially inflated sense of self and deceive people into believing that they are more superior than they really are the second safeguarding tendency is aggression uh this is another common safeguarding tendency and adler held that some people use aggression to safeguard their exaggerated superiority complex that is to protect their fragile self-esteem safeguarding through aggression may take the form of of depreciation accusation or self-accusation depreciation is the tendency to undervalue other people's achievement and to overvalue their own achievement this safeguarding tendency is evident in such aggressive people as criticism and gossips so accusation the second form of an aggressive safeguarding device is the tendency to blame others for one's failure and to seek revenge thereby safeguarding one's own tend was self-esteem the third form of the of of neurotic aggression is self-accusation is marked by self-torture and guilt some people use self-self torture including masochism depression and suicide as means of hurting people who are close to them guilt is often aggressive self accusatory behavior the last is withdrawal people develop or rather personality development can be uh halted when people run away from difficulties ugly referred to this tendencies as withdrawal or safeguarding through distance some people unconsciously escape life's problem problem by setting up a distance between them and those problems adler recognized four four modes of safeguarding through withdrawal first is moving backwards second is standing still third is hesitating and and and fourth is constructing obstacle so so so moving backwards is the tendency to safeguard one's fictional goal or or of superiority by psychologically reverting to a more secure period of life remember freud's regression so psychological distance can be created by standing still this uh withdrawal tendency is similar to moving back but in general it's not as severe people who stand still simply do not move uh in any direction so so they thus avoid all responsibilities by ensuring themselves against uh any threat of failure so so uh this or a rather procrastination could be a manifestation of what adler are referred to as standing still uh the concept of impasse can also be referred to adler's concept of standing still clearly uh or rather closely related to standing still is hesitating some people hesitate or or some people hesitate when faced with difficult problems their procrastinations eventually give them the excuse it's too late now so the least severe of the withdrawal safeguarding tendencies is constructing obstacles some people build a straw house to show that they can knock it down by overcoming the obstacles they protect their self-esteem and their prestige even if or rather if they fail they uh to hurdle the barrier they can always resort to an excuse so in contrast to freud adler believed that uh the the psychic life of women is essentially the same as that of men and that a male-dominated society is not natural but rather an artificial product of historical development respect for ander for this idea so so women get non-stop messages from from from uh from the media and and advertising that they should look and act a certain way if they want to be considered beautiful or desirable or successful the media highlights a very specific version of being a woman that includes makeup dresses high heels and a teammate demeanor there are also some jobs that are considered more appropriate for women such as teaching child care or even nursing if you think about the women in your life they probably look a lot more diverse and unique than the women you see on television women who participate in masculine protest are actively rebelling against the possession that modern society has constructed for them to them the stereotypes about women in the media are trying to force them into a very small box and they want to live in a bigger world that is not ruled by inequality and inferiority one way women express this by is by choosing traditionally masculine careers like firefighting military service or even professional mixed martial arts these women tend to feel more equal and powerful in their own lives and in many ways they're slowly paving the way for all women men can also be influenced by the prominence of a masculine culture and participate in masculine protests themselves in men it typically manifests as a superiority complex which is used to hide feelings of inferiority by grandeus behaviors of being better and superior to others it's the usage of i am a better than you mentality in order to hide the unpleasantness uh or the unpleasant feelings of emotional distress or feeling inferior and inadequate so lastly let's talk about anders concept of humanity other believe that people are basically self-determined and that they shape their personalities from uh from the meaning they give their of they give to their experiences uh the building material of personality is provided by heredity and environment but the creative power ships this materials and put it to good use and their frequently emphasized that they use um that the people make of their ability this is more important than the quantity of those abilities heredity and those people with certain abilities and an environment gives them some opportunities to enhance those abilities but we are ultimately responsible for the use uh they make uh of these abilities so adler also believed that people in people's interpretation rather uh of experiences are more important than the act that they experience themselves neither the past nor the future determines present behavior instead people are motivated by their present perception of the past and their present expectations of the future so these perceptions do not necessarily uh correspond with reality and as understated meanings are not determined by situations but we determine ourselves by the meanings we give the situation people are forward moving motivated by future goals rather than by innate instincts of of causal forces this future goals are often rigid and unrealistic but people's personal freedom all allows them to reshape their goal and thereby change their lives people create their personalities and are capable of altering them by learning new ideas and attitudes these attitudes encompass an understanding that change can happen that no other person or circumstance is responsible for what a person is and that the personal growth must be subordinated to social interest although our final goal is relatively fixed during early childhood we remain free to change our style of life at any time because the goal is is fictional and unconscious we can set and pursue temporary goals these momentary goals are not rigidly uh circumcis circumscribed by by by the final goal but are created by us merely as partial solutions under expressed this idea as follow we must understand that the reactions of the human soul are not final and absolute every response is bought a partial response valid temporary but in no way to be considered a final solution of a problem in other words even though our final goals is set during childhood we are capable of change at any point in life however under maintain that not all our choices are conscious and that style of life is created through both conscious and unconscious choices others believe that ultimately people are responsible for their own personalities people's creative power is capable of transforming feelings of inadequacy to either social interest or into self-centered goals of personal superiority this capacity means that people remain free to choose between psychological health and neuroticism under-regarded self-centeredness as path or rather as pathologically as pathological and established social interests as the standard of psychological maturity for him healthy people have high levels of social interest but throughout their lives they remain free to accept or reject normality and become what they will so all the six dimensions of the concept of humanity listed in the first video of this course we rate adler very high on free choice and optimism very low on causality and and then leaning towards teleology uh moderate on unconscious uh influences of personality and behavior high on social factors and on the uniqueness of individuals in summary adler held the people are self-determining social creatures forward moving and motivated by present fictions to strive towards perfection for themselves and society so this ends our lesson for today my name is nexcamitan and thank you for watching