Alfred Adler
The grandfather of humanistic psychology
Presented by: Jake Metz and Megan Wolberg
The basics
• Alfred Adler was born
February 7, 1870 in Pen zing,
Austria He was born to a
Jewish grain merchant. Who
was very supportive
throughout Adler’s sickness.
• As a young child Adler
developed Rickets, which
kept the very active child
from walking, because of this,
he decided to become a
physician.
The beginning…
• Adler’s father was one of his earliest influence, because of his
father he became determined to excel.
• He was good at math.
• Adler successfully earned his medical degree graduating from
the University of Vienna, in 1895.
• He began his medical career as an ophthalmologist
Psychology
• At first he studied with Sigmund Freud,
but Adler rejected Freud's emphasis on
sex, and maintained that personality
difficulties are rooted in a feeling of
inferiority deriving from restrictions on
the individual's need for self-assertion.
• He came to view Freud inflexible in his
views and obsessed with sex and death,
so he started a new branch in
psychology that he called individual
psychology.
Individual psychology
• He studied individual personalities by interviewing and studying one person at a
time.
• Was interested in this field of study because Alfred felt each person was unique
and no previous theory applied to all people.
Major Discoveries
• He basically discovered/founded Individual psychology
• Alfred came up with the term inferiority complex
"We all wish to overcome difficulties. We all strive to reach a goal by the attainment of
which we shall feel strong, superior, and complete"
• He also discovered that birth order had a lot to do with personality and
how a person turned out to be (lifestyle)
His Literature
• Study of Organ Inferiority and Its Psychical
Compensation
• Individual Psychology Of Alfred Adler
• Case Of Miss R
• Social Interest
• Menschenkenntnis
• What Life Could Mean to You
• And Many more…
Influence on modern
psychology
• He taught us that everyone is different.
• He greatly influenced therapy and child development
• He also influenced important psychologists such as…
Maslow, Rogers, and Horney
My Citations
• "Alfred Adler." My Webspace Files. Web. 16 Sept. 2010.
<http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/adler.html>.
• "Alfred Adler." NNDB: Tracking the Entire World. Web. 16
Sept. 2010.
<http://www.nndb.com/people/256/000097962/>.