Biography
Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler is considered one of the prominent scientists of the 20th century. He laid the foundations of individual psychology, which considers a person in a complex with his social characteristics, and also introduced the terms "complex of inferiority" and "compensation".Childhood and youth
The psychologist was born on February 7, 1870 in Rudolfsheim, a village on Western outskirts of Vienna, in Austria-Hungary. He is the second of seven pawlins (in the Maiden Bir) and Leopold Adler, Jews.
The biography of Alfred Adler was complex, complete tragedies and deaths from an early age. In infancy, he suffered rakhita, because of which it was later learned to walk. In 3 years lost his younger brother, who died next to him in the crib. At 4 years old picked up such serious inflammation of the lungs that the doctors said: the boy was lost. According to the memories of a man, it was this quotation that inspired him to become a doctor.
All the adler outlined in the writings was based on his personal life. As a child, the psychologist was popular with peers, they found them those feelings of respect and equality that did not give the family. Later he wrote that it was thanks to the interest of the Society that a person could realize his potential.
Personal life
In the student years, Alfred met his future wife Raisa Timofeevna Epstein, an intelligent and socialist from Russia, which came to Vienna for the exchange. Wedding played in 1897.Children were born - Valentine (1898 r.), Alexandra (1901 G.), Kurt (1905 R.) And Cornelia, or Nelli (1909). The archives have a lot of photos of the friendly family Adler.
Middle children, Alexander and Kurt, went in the footsteps of the Father and tied life with psychiatry. Valentine elected the path of the mother - became a trotter, for which it was repressed later.
Scientific activity
Medical career Alfred Adler began as an ophthalmologist, then switched to neurology, but interest in psychology was still over. His ideas were so interesting that in 1902 Sigmund Freud invited a colleague to join her Wednesday Society's discussion club. In fact, psychoanalysis originated at these meetings.
Like many people, adler relations with Sigmund Freud did not work out. In 1911, he came out of Wednesday Society, and a year later, he founded the Association of Individual Psychology. Initially, those who considered the ideas of Alfred were more similar to the Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, which with Psychoanalysis of Freud.
The thinker succeeded in building an independent school of psychotherapy and the theory of personality. He put the development of the concept, which would consider the psychological well-being of a person in a conjunction with his social situation. At the same time, Adler competently did the focus not on the treatment of existing problems, but to prevent their occurrence.
Early ideas of men are described in the book "Neroid character". Already on these pages, the concepts of inferiority and compensation appear.
The psychologist writes that the unconscious of the person's free from mental problems works so as to transform the existing inferiority - physical, moral, mental - in superiority, that is, the completeness. On the way, this transformation can stand only social barriers: upbringing, environment, role in society. Adler also points to the danger of "supercompensation". The person who has achieved this becomes, as a rule, thirsty of power, an aggressive egocentric.
In his concept, Alfred takes a significant place to memories of childhood. In the book "Science Live" a psychologist writes:
"Memories are reminders. There is no random memories. From an innumerable number of impressions that happen to a person in childhood, memory prefers to keep only those that she considers the explanation of mental problems. "He was interested in Adler and the procedure for the emergence of children to light. Relying on their own experience, he suggested that the firstborn is in a favorable position, because it only enjoys the attention of his parents. But with the advent of the second and subsequent children, he begins to feel humiliated. The complex of inferiority is developing.
According to the thinker, it is older children most often suffer from neurosis and bad habits. This compensation for excessive responsibility in childhood is for example, the need to look after relatives. Younger children, on the contrary, grow spoiled, which leads to a weak social empathy. But the middle children who have not experienced neither overweight, nor the lack of such, most often grow in successful people.
That is why Adler considered it important to carry out therapy and trainings not with adults mentally unhealthy people and not even with children, but with those who are engaged in education. For 25 years, a psychologist read lectures in schools, hospitals, public centers. He told his parents, social workers, teachers how to grow a worthy member of society.
Partly, these lectures were recorded in the Adler bibliography: "Individual psychology as a path to the knowledge and self-knowledge of a person", "understand the nature of man", "about the desire for superiority."
It is difficult to assess the practical contribution to the psychology committed by Alfred Adler. Do not count how much it is removed from the complexes of inferiority and subsequent painful compensation.
Some of the views of the thinker found a response in Neofreedism, Gestalt psychology, they are relevant today. His personality theories adhere to dozens of countries: USA, Canada, Austria, Germany, Italy, Israel, Japan, etc.
Death
Alfred Adler died on May 28, 1937 in Aberdeen, Scotland. The cause of death was a heart attack. They say he has become bad on the street. Passers-by who came to the rescue, heard the name, tipped from his lips: Kurt. In a death minute, a man called the sole son.The body betrayed fire in the Warriston crematorium in Edinburgh, but did not give up their relatives. For many years, the remains of the psychologist were considered lost, and in 2007 they were found in the repositories of the crematorium. In 2011, urn with ashes transported to Vienna for burial.
Bibliography
- 1912 - "On the irregular character"
- 1914 - "Treat and educate"
- 1919 - "Other side. Mass "
- 1938 - "Social interest: challenge mankind"
- 1926 - "Individual psychology as a path to knowledge and self-knowledge of a person"
- 1928 - "Essays on individual psychology"
- 1929 - "Individual psychology and child development"
- 1929 - "Science live"
- 1932 - "Treatment Technique"