INFERIOR COMPLEX CURE IS GIVEN BY DR. ALFRED ADLER
Presented to a capacity audience last night at the George Washington Junior High School by Mrs. Dean Godwin, President of the Long Beach branch of the Southern California Mental Hygiene Society, Dr. Alfred Adler, widely known psychologist and practicing psychiatrist of Vienna, spoke on "The Inferiority Complex."
It was through the courtesy of the Mental Hygiene Society that the public was able to hear the educational address.
"Lack of social adjustment," Dr. Adler said, "is the basis, the birthery of that attitude of man toward his environment and his associates—that has been termed an inferiority complex."
Beginning with the infant under its mother's daily care, the speaker depicted, step by step, in the growth of the individual, the corresponding growth of his reaction to the environment under which he is reared; in the overpampered child who unconsciously learns to expect the best of the family's gifts for himself; who feels the desire always to occupy the center of the stage and to receive the undivided attention of his elders with whom he is in contact is planted the seed of a future inferiority complex, which takes its nucleus of being from the opposite term, superiority complex. This latter state of mind, Dr. Adler explained, is but another form, an exaggerated form perhaps, of the opposing term, inferiority complex. It is in this respect that the function of the mother plays its greatest part, for it is in the first five years of a child's life that the pattern is formed that will guide his moves and his attitude through adult life.
"Another element in the development of an inferiority complex," Dr. Adler said, "is found in the paternal relationship which harbors a too strict discipline and which suppresses the normal instincts of the individual to the extent that a feeling of fear, either a fear of ridicule or of criticism, governs his movements and thus instills in his subconscious mind a desire to withdraw from the contact of his fellows. He prefers solitude to the possible unpleasantness that may result from social intercourse with other children. This, the real inferiority complex, is based on the foundation laid in early life, but not as a rule in the first few years, and is therefore a condition that may more easily be overcome, since, with the coming of the adolescent age, comes a state wherein a child may be shown his mistake in the trend of his life and when he co-operates with his elders in correcting the handicap that would afflict him.
"Individual psychology, as applied to the study of the human mind, ofttimes is misleading," Dr. Adler said. "It is only when it is realized to be the self, the 'ideal ego' of an existence, that it is recognized as being a distinct entity. It is then that every movement in a given individual is found to be consistent with the fundamental style of life that has been formed for and by the person.
"Discouragement is another contribution to the development of an inferiority complex. Teachers share in this fault equally with the parent or guardian. It is in the early adolescent age when this condition is most likely to arise, just as it is at that age when the early pattern of life begins to reassert itself in the growing freedom and self-realization of the youth.
"An inferiority complex, once seated in the mind of the child, can be overcome only by repetition of the function of the mother; by suggestion and rebuilding the pattern on which his activities revolve. Confidence and understanding and patience and freedom to the child are the features of adult contact that will best help to free the youth from his inborn superstitutions of inferiority."
Fuente: "Inferior Complex Cure Is Given by Dr. Alfred Adler", Long Beach Press-Telegram, Thursday, 14 February 1929, p. A-19, cols. 4-5, unsigned. Transcribed from the page image of the California Digital Newspaper Collection (CDNC, LBPT19290214.1.19); the platform OCR, almost wholly corrupt, was not used. The whole piece is legible. "Inferior Complex" (headline), "birthery", "Individual psychology ... misleading,'" (single closing quote) and "superstitutions" are printed thus; the closing quotation mark of the third paragraph is supplied as printed, after "associates—that has been termed an inferiority complex". The rest of the page is omitted.