ADLER ADDLES JUNIOR BRAINS
League Tries to Find Out All About "Complexes"
But "Inferiority" Inventor Has 'Em All Guessing
Deep Meanings Desperately Sought in His Talk
BY ALMA WHITAKER
It was a great event for the Junior League of Los Angeles when Dr. Alfred Adler, the Viennese gentleman who invented the inferiority complex, addressed it in the conference room at the Biltmore yesterday and lunched with the members afterward.
Dr. Adler really is the guest of Occidental College and Dr. Remsen D. Bird, its president. But they found him so sought after that they had to rent him out to numerous organizations just bursting to hear how he came to oppose the Freudian theories and—er—what can be done about inferiority complexes.
The eminent doctor is a short man, probably about 5 feet 2 inches, but heavy set and with a face that bespeaks intellectuality. His English is a little labored—with a preponderance of "shushes," so that even a word like "because" seems to end with "shush"—so that it was some time before our ears were attuned to his diction and accent.
"ELEMENTARY" TALK
Dr. Adler talked for an hour and, as Dr. Bird, his host, explained afterward, "gave a very elementary talk suited to the requirements of this particular audience," meaning that the word "junior" made a deeper impression than "league" with the distinguished visitor. Nevertheless, these "juniors" include some of our brightest young society matrons and among their guests of the day many deep students of psychology, including, for instance, Dr. Dorothea Moore.
The speaker reiterated much that he said in published interviews the day before—and before that, for years, we had been pretty well informed on. But then, of course, we probably learned it from Dr. Adler originally, and one cannot expect even psychologists to be bristling with new originalities all the time. So we heard that pretty well all of us have an inferiority complex, that superiority complexes are another form of the same thing, that selfish people have inferiority complexes and that working out of them, onward and upward . . . "Excelsior" is the fundamental be-all of human existence. Elsie Lincoln Benedict puts it in more popular form and takes her subjects later in life. Dr. Adler wants us to begin on the babies.
SOME OPINIONS
One woman asked the speaker which books she should read to aid her in raising her children. Without hesitation he recommended two of his own. One, on sale locally, is called "Understanding Human Nature," but this, too, is apt to be "elementary" . . . the sort of thing a merciful providence permits the average mama to know without such weighty study.
"An inferiority complex," opines the speaker, "is always lack of courage." And then—"Napoleon had an inferiority complex . . ." (Albeit the people who ask the nerviest favors invariably give an inferiority-complex impression, according to my personal observation.)
Thank goodness, however, Dr. Adler denies that sex is the basic power of life, as Freud asserts. He studied under Freud, you know, and fell out with him on this point.
At all events, the Junior Leaguers were satisfied with their bargain and stood prepared to defend him against all critics—as nice hostesses should. All the same, it sounded very like the title of one of Shakespeare's comedies to me . . . "Much Ado . . ." He probably will be more advanced and technical when addressing the phychiatrists.
Dr. Adler is scheduled to speak tomorrow night at the Shakespeare Club in Pasadena. The lecture is open to the public.
DR. ADLER TO GIVE TALK AT UNIVERSITY
Dr. Adler is to give a public lecture on "The Style of Life" in Bovard Auditorium of the University of Southern California, at 4:15 p.m. today, under the auspices of the graduate school, of which Dr. Rockwell D. Hunt is dean.
Fuente: "Adler Addles Junior Brains", by Alma Whitaker, Los Angeles Times, Thursday, 14 February 1929, p. 2, col. 3, with a photograph in col. 4-5. Transcribed from the page image at fultonhistory.com (Los Angeles CA Times 1929-02-14_48_24), rendered at 300 dpi; the platform OCR, very defective, was used only for orientation. The whole piece is legible. "Phychiatrists" is printed thus. The short notice "Dr. Adler to Give Talk at University", printed at the foot of the same column under its own headline, is included because it concerns Adler and continues the column; the rest of the page is omitted.