Understanding Human Nature

The Psychology of Personality

Alfred Adler

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781780744711
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Long-regarded as the handbook of Individual Psychology, Understanding Human Nature provides an accessible introduction to Adler's key concepts, with which he moved away from his colleague Freud's thinking. These include inferiority/ superiority complexes; memories and dreams; love marriage and children; and sexuality and sexual problems. Adler's holistic personality-based approach to psychology continues to be relevant today to students, the general public and professionals alike.

PART ONE

FUNDAMENTALS

OF

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

1

WHAT IS THE PSYCHE?

THE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS

We attribute a consciousness only to moving, living organisms. The existence of consciousness presupposes free motion, since those organisms that are strongly rooted in one spot have no necessity for it. How unnatural it would be to attribute emotions and thoughts to an oak tree; to contend that the tree might consciously accept the destruction that it could in no way escape; to claim for it a presentiment of that destruction; to attribute reason and free will to it, knowing it could never make use of these qualities. Under such conditions the will and the reason of the oak tree would of necessity remain stillborn.

There is a strict corollary between movement and consciousness. This constitutes the difference between plant and animal. In the evolution of the psyche, therefore, we must consider everything that is connected with movement. All the questions connected with physical movement force the psyche to look ahead, to gather experiences and develop a memory, to equip itself more fully for the business of life. We can thus ascertain from the very beginning that the development of the psyche is connected with movement, and that the evolution and progress of all psychological phenomena are conditioned by the mobility of the organism. This mobility stimulates, promotes and requires an ever greater intensification of mental activity. Imagine individuals who have had every movement planned for them: their mental life will be at a standstill.

THE FUNCTION OF THE PSYCHE

If we regard the function of the psyche from this point of view, we will realize that we are considering the evolution of a hereditary ability, an organ for attack and defence with which the living organism reacts to the situation in which it finds itself. Psychological activity is a complex of aggressive and defensive mechanisms whose final purpose is to guarantee the continued existence of the organism and to enable it to develop in safety. If we accept this premise, then further considerations grow out of it, which we deem necessary for a true conception of the psyche. We cannot imagine psychological activity in isolation. We can only imagine it in relation to its environment, receiving and responding to stimuli from outside.

This premise suggests many considerations about the peculiarities of human beings, their physical nature, their good and bad qualities. These are entirely relative concepts, since there are no objective criteria for judging whether an ability or a physical characteristic is an asset or a liability. These judgements are only relevant to the situation in which individuals find themselves. It is common knowledge that the human foot is, in a sense, a degenerate hand. In an animal that had to climb trees, a human foot would be a definite disadvantage, but for a human being who must walk on flat ground, a foot is so useful that no one would prefer to walk on a ‘normal’ hand rather than a ‘degenerate’ foot. It is a fact that in our personal lives, as in the lives of other people, apparent defects should not be considered the source of evil in themselves. Only the context can determine whether they are assets or liabilities.

OUR PURPOSE AND GOAL-DIRECTEDNESS

The first thing we can discover about ourselves is that we are always striving towards a goal. We cannot, therefore, imagine the human spirit as a single, static entity. We can best imagine it as a collection of moving parts, developed from a common origin, which strive to achieve a single goal. This teleology, this striving for a goal, is basic to the concept of adaptation, and the life of the psyche is inconceivable without a goal towards which all our efforts are directed.

Our mental life is determined by our goal. No human being can think, feel, wish or dream without all these activities being determined, continued, modified and directed towards an ever-present objective. This results from the necessity for the organism to adapt itself and respond to the environment. The physical and psychological phenomena of human life are based upon the fundamental principles we have demonstrated. It is impossible to conceive of psychological development except within a pattern depending on an ever-present objective, which is determined in turn by the dynamics of life. The goal itself we may conceive either as changing or as static. On this basis, all the phenomena of our psychological existence may be considered as preparations for some future situation. The soul, indeed, seems to consist chiefly of a force moving towards a goal, and Individual Psychology considers all the manifestations of the human spirit as though they were directed towards such a goal.

Knowing the goal of individuals and knowing also something of the world, enables us to understand the meaning of the ways they express themselves, and of the direction their life takes, and how these things function as a preparation for their goal. We also need to know what steps each individual must take to reach their goal – just as we can know the trajectory of a stone if we let it fall to earth – although people do not follow a fixed, natural law because the ever-present goal is always in flux. If, however, everyone has an ever-present goal, then every psychological tendency must move towards it, as though it were indeed obeying some natural law. A law governing our psychological life does exist, to be sure; but it is not a natural law like the law of gravity; it is a man-made law. To believe there is sufficient evidence to justify our speaking of a natural law of the psyche is to be deceived by appearances. Anyone who believes they have demonstrated the unchangeable and predetermining power of circumstances is playing with loaded dice. After all, if a painter sets out to paint a picture, the world attributes to him all the attitudes appropriate to an individual with that aim in mind. He will do all the usual things, with all the expected results, just as though there were a natural law at work. But is he under any necessity to paint the picture? Given his free will, we must deduce that it is his striving to attain his goal that keeps him putting the paint on the canvas.

There is a difference between physical movements and movements of the human psyche. All the questions about free will hinge upon this important point. Nowadays it is believed that human will is not free. It is true that human will becomes bound as soon as it commits itself to a particular goal. And since circumstances in the cosmic, physical and social relationships of humankind frequently determine this goal, it is not surprising that our psychological life should so often appear to be ruled by immutable natural laws. But if a man, for example, denies his relationships to society and rebels against them, or if he refuses to adapt himself to the realities of life, then all these seemingly immutable laws are abrogated and a new law appears that is determined by the new goal. In the same way, the law of communal life does not bind individuals who have become perplexed by life and attempt to deny their feelings for their fellow human beings. And so I repeat once again that movement in our mental life can only take place when an appropriate goal has been chosen.

On the other hand, it is possible to discover the goal of individuals from observing their present activities. This is particularly important because so few people know exactly what their goal is. On the practical level, this is the procedure we must follow if we are to gain some knowledge of humankind. Since actions may have many meanings, this is not always so simple. We can, however, take several examples of a person’s known behaviour, compare them, and plot them on a graph. In this way we arrive at an understanding of a human being by connecting two points in which a definite psychological attitude was expressed, with the time difference indicated by a curve. This method is used to obtain a clear representation of a person’s life. An example will serve to illustrate how we may discover a pattern of behaviour in an adult that reproduces with astonishing consistency the attitudes of childhood.

A thirty-year-old man of extraordinarily aggressive character, who has achieved success and acclaim despite a difficult childhood, comes to the therapist in a deep depression, complaining that he has no desire to work, or even to live. He explains that he is about to become engaged, but that he views the future with trepidation. He is tormented by jealousy and is close to breaking off his engagement. The facts that he cites to explain his jealousy are not very convincing, and since the young lady in question cannot be blamed, the obvious distrust he shows calls for investigation. He is one of those men who approach another individual, feel attracted, but immediately assume an aggressive attitude that destroys the very contact they wanted to establish.

Now let us plot the graph of this man’s life style as described above, by taking one event in his life and seeking to link it with his present attitude. As is our usual practice, we ask for his first childhood memory, even though we know it is not always possible to test its objective truth. He tells us that he was in the market-place with his mother and his younger brother. The market-place was crowded and his mother picked him up, but then she realized she should carry the younger child, put him down again and picked up his younger brother, leaving our patient buffeted by the crowd and very perplexed. At that time he was four years old. In the recital of this memory, exactly the same points emerge that we heard in the description of his present complaint. He is not sure of his position as the favoured one, and he cannot bear to think that someone else might supplant him. Once the connection is made clear to him, our patient, quite astonished, sees the relationship immediately.

The psychological goal towards which every human being’s actions are directed is determined by those influences and impressions that are imposed on children by their environment. The concept of the ideal state – that is, the goal – of each human being is probably formed in the first months of life. Even at this time certain sensations play a role in evoking a response of joy or sorrow in the child. Here the first traces of a philosophy of life come to the surface, expressed in the most primitive terms. The fundamental factors that influence the psyche are founded in infancy. Upon these foundations a superstructure is built that may be modified, influenced or transformed. A multiplicity of influences soon force children into a definite attitude towards life and condition their own particular response to the problems life poses.

Investigators who believe the characteristics of an adult to be discernible in infancy are not far wrong. This accounts for many people’s belief that character is hereditary. But the idea that character and personality are inherited from one’s parents is universally harmful. Among other things, it hinders educators in their task and erodes their confidence, and enables them to shirk their responsibilities simply by blaming heredity for their pupils’ failures. This, of course, is quite contrary to the purpose of education.

Our civilization plays an important role in the development of a person’s psychological goal. It sets up rules and boundaries against which children struggle until they discover how to fulfil their wishes in a way that promises both security and a successful adaptation to life. How much security children demand in relation to the everyday realities of our society may be learned early in their lives. By security we do not mean only security from danger, but that further element of safety that guarantees our continued existence under optimum circumstances. Children secure this by demanding a safety margin greater than is strictly necessary for the satisfaction of their basic needs, greater than would be necessary for a quiet life. Thus arises a new tendency in their psychological development, a tendency towards dominance and superiority.

Like adults, children want to surpass all their rivals. They strain for a superiority that will guarantee them the security and adaptation synonymous with the goal they have previously set for themselves. Thus a certain psychological uneasiness develops that becomes stronger as time goes on. Suppose now that the world begins to require a more powerful response. If in this time of need children do not believe in their own ability to overcome their difficulties, we will see strenuous evasions and complicated excuses, which serve only to emphasize their underlying thirst for glory.

In these circumstances the immediate goal frequently becomes the avoidance of all major difficulties. Children fight shy of difficulties or wriggle out of them in order to evade life’s demands temporarily. We must understand that human psychological reactions are not fixed and absolute: every response is only a partial one, temporarily valid but not to be considered the final solution to a problem. In the development of the child’s psyche especially, we are reminded that we are dealing with a purely temporary crystallization of the idea of a goal. We cannot apply to the juvenile psyche the same criteria we use to evaluate the adult psyche. In the case of children we must look further and guess at the final state to which their energies and activities will eventually lead them. If we could see into their mind, we could understand how all the expressions of their character are directed towards the ideal they have created for themselves as the crystallization of their desired final adaptation to life.

We must look at things from the children’s point of view if we want to know why they act as they do. The basic attitude connected with their point of view directs children in various ways. First, there is an optimistic attitude to life in which children are confident that they can readily solve any problems they come across. Under these circumstances they will grow up with all the characteristics of individuals who consider the tasks of life easily within their power. In these cases we see the development of courage, openness, frankness, responsibility, hard work and so on. The opposite of this is the development of pessimism. Imagine the goal of children who are not confident of being able to solve their problems! How dismal the world must appear to such children! Here we find timidity, introspection, distrust and all those other characteristics and traits with which weaklings seek to defend themselves. Their goal will lie beyond their reach, but also far away from the front line where life’s real battles are fought.

2

SOCIAL ASPECTS OF MENTAL LIFE

In order to know how someone thinks, we have to examine their relationship to their fellow human beings. Person-to-person relationships are governed on the one hand by the very nature of the cosmos, and are thus subject to change. On the other hand, they are determined by human institutions such as political traditions in the community or nation. We cannot comprehend the workings of the human psyche without at the same time understanding these social relationships.

THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH

The psyche cannot act as an independent agent. Problems constantly crop up, and the need to solve them tends to govern the direction in which the psyche is able to develop. These problems are indivisibly bound up with the logic of our communal life; the demands of the community influence individuals, but seldom allow themselves to be influenced by them, and then only to a certain degree. The existing conditions of our communal life, however, cannot yet be considered final. They are too complex and too variable. Moreover, we are too enmeshed in our own relationships to be able to cast sufficient light on the problem of the psyche to understand it thoroughly.

Our sole recourse in this dilemma is to accept the logic of our communal life on earth as though it were an ultimate, absolute truth that can be approached step by step, after the correction of any mistakes and errors arising from our incomplete social organization and our limited capabilities as human beings. An important point in our considerations is the materialistic stratification of society described by Marx and Engels. According to their teachings, the economic basis of a community determines the ideological thinking and behaviour of individuals. Our conception of the ‘logic of human communal life’, of the ‘absolute truth’, is in part an acceptance of existing concepts. History, and our insight into the life of the individual (that is, Individual Psychology), have taught us, however, that it is occasionally convenient for individuals to give a mistaken response to the demands of a socio-economic system. In attempting to evade the system, they may become inextricably entangled in the convolutions of their own mistaken reactions. Our way to the absolute truth will lead us past countless errors.

THE NEED FOR COMMUNAL LIFE

The rules of communal life are just as self-explanatory as the laws of the weather, which compel us to take certain measures: desire for protection against the cold leads to house-building, and so on. The human compulsion towards the community and communal life is revealed in institutions whose forms we do not need to understand fully; for example in religion, where group worship creates a bond between members of the congregation. Just as the conditions of our lives are determined in the first place by the facts of the universe, further conditions arise through the social and communal life of human beings and the laws and regulations springing from it. The needs of the community govern all human relationships. Communal life predates the individual life of humanity. In the history of human civilization no way of life has emerged of which the foundations were not laid communally; human beings developed not singly but in communities. This is very easily explained. The whole animal kingdom demonstrates the fundamental law that species whose members are individually incapable of facing the battle for self-preservation gain additional strength through herd life.

Darwin long ago drew attention to the fact that weak animals were never found living alone. We are forced to consider human beings among these weaker animals, because they too are not strong enough to live alone. Without tools they can only offer the feeblest resistance to the depredations of nature. They need all manner of artificial aids merely to stay alive on this planet. Imagine being alone, without any tools except one’s bare hands, in a primitive forest! One would be more at risk than any other living creature. Human beings are generalists, not specialists. They have neither speed nor power, not the teeth of the carnivore, nor the sharp eyes or acute hearing that warn other creatures of danger. Humanity needs a whole battery of tools to guarantee its existence. Our diet, our physical characteristics and our life style all demand these tools.

Now we can understand that human beings survive only in particularly favourable conditions. These favourable conditions have been created by communal living. Communal living became a necessity because the community and the division of labour through which all individuals subordinate themselves to the group, ensured the continued existence of the species. Only division of labour (which is another way of saying civilization) is capable of ensuring that the tools of survival are available to humankind. Only after they had learned about the division of labour did humans learn how to assert themselves. Consider the difficulties of childbirth and the extraordinary care ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• FOREWORD
• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION
• PART ONE: FUNDAMENTALS OF CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
• PART TWO: THE SCIENCE OF CHARACTER
• CONCLUSION
• GLOSSARY OF KEY TERMS
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX