Section of Psychiatry.
President—Dr. W. Aldren Turner, C.B.
The Feeling of Inferiority and the Striving for Recognition.
By Alfred Adler.
(Translated by Walter Béran Wolfe, M.D.)
I.—The Situation in Early Childhood.
We recognize the fact that children who have been treated as step-children by Nature have an entirely different attitude toward life and their fellow creatures from that of those to whom the joys of existence were vouchsafed at an early age. It may be stated as a fundamental law that children who come into the world with organic defects become involved at an early age in a struggle with the facts of existence which results only too soon in the suppression of their social feeling. Such children are continually preoccupied with themselves and the impression they make upon others, instead of interesting themselves in an adjustment to their fellows. What holds good for organic defects is equally valid in the case of any social or economic disability which manifests itself as an additional burden capable of producing a hostile attitude toward the environment. The deciding trend becomes determined at an early age, and such children have an intuition, even at the age of two, that they are somehow not as adequately equipped for the struggle as their playmates, and have a sense that they cannot trust themselves in the common games and pastimes. As a result of past privations they have acquired a feeling of being neglected, which expresses itself in their tendency to hold themselves in an attitude of anxious expectation. It is necessary to remember that every child occupies an inferior position in life, and were it not for a certain quantum of social feeling on the part of his environment would be incapable of independent existence. One can realize that, at the commencement of every life, there must be a more or less deep feeling of inferiority. This arises in the weakness and helplessness of children who are at all conscious of their inability to cope single-handed with the problems of existence. This feeling of inferiority is the driving force, the starting point, from which every childish striving originates. It determines how, and whether, this individual child acquires peace and security in life, it determines the very goal of his existence, and prepares the path along which this goal may be reached. The basis of his educability lies in this attitude, this peculiar situation in which every child finds himself, a situation very closely bound up with his organic potentialities. This educability, general as the feeling of inferiority is, may be destroyed by two factors: (1) An exaggerated, intensified, unresolved feeling of inferiority, and (2) a goal demanding not only security, peace and social equilibrium, but power over his environment, i.e., dominance over his fellows. Children who have such a goal are easily recognized and they become "problem" children, (1) because they interpret every experience as a defeat, and (2) because they always consider themselves neglected and discriminated against by both Nature and mankind. One need only consider these factors to see how readily a crooked, inadequate, error-ridden development may occur in the life of a child.
Every child runs the danger of such a development, because he finds himself, at some time or another, in a situation which is precarious.
A child finding himself in an environment of adults is predisposed to consider himself weak, small and incapable of living alone, and in such a situation is quite unable to trust himself to accomplish little tasks, which we would think him capable of performing without making mistakes, and exhibiting clumsiness of action. At this point most of our errors of education commence, and by our demanding more than the child can accomplish, the idea of his own helplessness is thrust upon him. Some children are consciously made to feel their smallness and helplessness. Then, again, there are children who are regarded as merely animated dolls, and those who are considered valuable property that must be carefully watched. Lastly, there are those who are made to feel that they are useless human freight. A combination of these attitudes on the part of parents and adults, generally leads a child to believe that he can accomplish only two things, the giving of pleasure or displeasure to his elders. The type of inferiority feeling which is produced by such an attitude on the part of the parents may be further intensified by other peculiar characteristics of our civilization. The habit of not taking children seriously falls into this category, and a child gets the impression that he is a nobody and without rights, that he is to be seen, not heard, must be courteous and quiet, etc. There are numerous children who grow up in the constant dread of being laughed at. This laughing at children is well-nigh criminal; it retains its effect upon the soul of the child, and upon his reaching adult life is transferred into habits and actions. One often recognizes an adult who was continually laughed at by his parents when a child; such individuals cannot rid themselves of the fear of being made ridiculous even on reaching maturity. Another aspect of this matter of not taking children seriously is the custom of telling children palpable lies, with the result that the child begins to doubt, not only his immediate environment, but also to question the seriousness and reality of life.
Cases have been recorded of children who laughed continually at school, seemingly without reason, who, when questioned, admitted that they thought school was a joke of their parents, not worth taking seriously!
II.—Compensating for the Feeling of Inferiority; the Striving for Recognition and Superiority.
It is the feeling of inferiority, of inadequacy, of insecurity which determines the goal of an individual's existence. The tendency to push into prominence, to attract the attention of parents, makes itself felt in the first days of life. These are the first indications of the awakening striving for recognition which develops itself under the concomitant influence of the feeling of inferiority, and purposes a goal in which the individual is seemingly dominating his surroundings.
The degree and quality of the social feeling also helps to determine the goal of dominance. We cannot judge any individual, whether he be child or adult, without drawing a comparison between his goal of dominance and the quantum of his social feeling. His goal is so determined that its achievement promises the possibility of either a sentiment of superiority, or, at least, an elevation of the personality to such a degree that life seems worth living. It is this goal which gives value to our sensations, which links and coördinates our sentiments, which shapes our imagination, guides our creative powers and determines what we shall remember and what we must forget. We can realize how relative is the value of all our sensations, sentiments, affects, imagination, when we appreciate the fact that not even our sensations are absolute quantities. All are influenced by the striving for a definite goal, so that our very perceptions are prejudiced and always chosen, so to speak, with a secret hint at the final end and toward which the personality is striving.
We orientate ourselves according to a fixed point which we have artificially created, and which does not exist in reality. This assumption, necessary because of the inadequacy of our psychic mode of expression, is very similar to the fictions which are of use in other sciences, such as dividing the earth with meridians; these do not actually exist, but are useful assumptions. In the case of all psychic fictions we have to postulate the following: We assume a fixed point even though close observation forces us to admit that it does not exist. The purpose of this assumption is simply to orientate ourselves in the chaos of existence, so that we can come to some apperception of relative values. The advantage is that we can classify every sensation and every sentiment according to this fixed point, once we have assumed it.
Individual psychology, therefore, creates for itself a heuristic system and method; it regards human behaviour, and endeavours to understand it, as though it were possible to produce a final state of affairs out of a set of inherited potentialities which are all tending to strive for a definite goal. Our experience, however, has shown us that the assumption of a striving for a goal is more than simply a convenient fiction. It has proved itself to be largely coincident with the actual facts in its fundamentals, whether these facts are to be found in the conscious or unconscious life. The striving for a goal, the purposiveness of the psychic life, is not only our philosophic attitude, but actually a fundamental fact.
When we question how we can, in a case of the child, best meet and answer the question of the abolition of that striving for power which is a prominent evil of our civilization, we are faced with the difficulty of making ourselves understood. For this striving tendency shows itself in the life of a child long before the time when it is possible to begin making attempts at improvement and clarification. Nevertheless, our living with the child, when such tendencies first occur, does afford us the opportunity of developing his social feeling so that his striving for personal power becomes a negligible factor.
A further difficulty lies in the fact that even children do not express their striving for power openly, but hide it under the guise of gentleness. They conceal their aspirations as if behind a veil, and so modestly expect to escape disclosure in this way. Their uninhibited striving for power, seeking for support, is capable of producing degeneration in their psychic development, with the result that, in their exaggerated striving for security and might, courage becomes changed to impudence, obedience into cowardice, gentleness degenerates into a subtle treachery, and the final result is that every natural feeling or expression carries with it a hypocritical afterthought the final end of which is the subjugation of the environment.
Conscious education works upon the child with the conscious, or unconscious, desire to remove him from his insecurity, to school him in the technique of life, give him a knowledge and educated understanding, and furnish him with a social feeling for his fellows. All these measures, from whatever source they come, are to be understood as attempts to give the growing child new ways of ridding himself of his insecurity and his feeling of inferiority. What happens in the soul of the child during this process we must judge by his character traits which are the mirror of the activity in his soul.
The importance of the feeling of insecurity and inferiority depends largely upon the interpretation given to it by the child; the objective degree of inferiority is important, of course, and makes itself felt. One must not expect a child to possess the correct estimation of himself in this situation, any more than one expects adults to possess it. Here the difficulties grow apace, as one child will grow up in a situation so complicated that errors concerning the degree of his inferiority are absolutely unavoidable, while another child will be better able to interpret his situation. But taken as a whole the interpretation which the child has of his feeling of inferiority varies from day to day until it finally becomes consolidated and expresses itself as a definite self-estimation. According to this crystallized self-estimation, the compensatory trends which the child creates to guide him out of his inferiority will be directed toward this or the other goal.
The mechanism of the striving for compensation, by means of which the soul seeks to neutralize the torturing feeling of inferiority, has its analogy in the organic world. It is a well-known fact that those organs of our bodies which are essential for life produce an overgrowth and overfunction when, through damage to their normal state, their productivity is lessened. Thus, in difficulties of circulation, the heart enlarges and becomes more powerful, seeming to draw its new strength from the whole body, until it reaches a stage in which it has become more powerful than a normal heart. Similarly so, does the soul under pressure of the feeling of inferiority, of the torturing thought that the individual is small and helpless, attempt with all its might to become master over this "inferiority complex."
Where the feeling of inferiority is highly intensified, to the degree at which the child believes that he will never be able to compensate for his weakness, the danger arises that in his striving for compensation he will be satisfied not with a simple balance of power, but will strive for an extra-compensation and will aim at over-balancing the scales.
This striving for power and dominance may become exaggerated and intensified to a degree that will entitle it to be called pathological. The ordinary relationships of life will never satisfy such children and, varying with their goal, their movements will come to assume a certain grandiose gesture. They seek to secure their position in life with extraordinary efforts, with greater haste and impatience, with more intense impulses, and without consideration for anyone else. Owing to these exaggerated movements toward their exaggerated goal of dominance, such children become more noticeable, and their attacks on the lives of others necessitate defensive measures against their activities. They are against the world, and the world is against them, and this antagonism does not necessarily occur in a bad sense of the word. Such a child may express his striving for power in a manner which does not come into conflict with society for a long time, and his ambition may be considered as no abnormal characteristic. If, however, we carefully investigate their accomplishments and achievements, we shall find that for the most part society at large does not benefit from their triumphs, because their ambition is a social one and will always put them in the path of other human beings as disturbing elements. Gradually other characteristics will appear which will evince a more anti-social colour, if we consider an individual in his full relationship to his fellow-men. In the forefront of these manifestations we find pride, vanity, and the striving to conquer everyone regardless of method, and this striving may manifest itself subtly in the relative exaltation of the individual, through the degradation of all those with whom he comes in contact; the important thing being only the distance which separates him from his fellows. Such an attitude is not only uncomfortable for his neighbours, but it is also very uncomfortable for the individual, because it brings him into continual contact with the dark side of life and prevents him from experiencing any happiness.
By means of the exaggerated straining for power with which these children endeavour to ensure themselves a place over their environment, they soon put themselves in a position of resistance to the ordinary tasks and duties of everyday life. Compare such a "power-hungry" individual with the ideal social being, and one can, after some little experience, specify, so to speak, his social index, that is, the degree to which he has removed himself from his fellow-man.
The student of human nature, in observing one of these individuals, will immediately recognize that some difficulties in the evolution of the psychic life must have occurred here, even as his eyes are open to any physical deficiencies and inferiorities. If we keep this fact in mind we shall do no damage to the individual's social feeling, seeing that we ourselves have developed an adequate social feeling, and with this attitude only we can help the individual. Bearing this in mind, we must not blame the bearer of a psychical defect or a disagreeable characteristic for his attitude of indignation. Indeed, we must admit his right to be indignant to the last limits, and we must be conscious that we participate in the common blame for his situation. We share the blame because we, too, have taken part in the inadequate precautions against the social misery which has produced it. If we abide by this standpoint we may effect improvement, and only thus can we approach such an individual, not as a degraded, worthless outcast, but as a fellow human being. Having this attitude toward our patient we must surround him with an atmosphere in which he will find that there are possibilities for feeling himself equal to every other human being in his environment. We have only to remind ourselves how unpleasant may be to us the sight of an individual whose organic or bodily inferiorities are externally visible, to judge the amount of education which we ourselves need in order to arrive at an absolutely just evaluation of our social feeling, and to judge also how much our civilization owes to such an individual. It is taken for granted that those individuals who come into the world with organic defects feel existence to be a burden from their earliest days—a suffering which most of us are spared. They thus find themselves in a position of pessimism as regards the whole structure of existence. Children who have less noticeable organic defects, but in whom the feeling of inferiority has become intensified, from whatever cause, right or wrong, find themselves in a very similar situation. Such a feeling of inferiority may be so artificially intensified, as, for instance, by over-pressure of education during the critical period, that the result is exactly the same as though the child came into the world greatly crippled. They never rid themselves of the thorn which has pierced their side in the early days of their existence, and the coldness which they have experienced prevents them from approaching their fellow-beings, with the result that they believe themselves to be in a world devoid of love and affection and with which they have no point of contact.
For example: A patient became specially noticeable because he was continually telling us about his great sense of duty and the importance of all his actions. He lived with his wife in the worst possible relationship, both he and she being individuals who measured to a hair-breadth the value of any event as a means toward the subjugation of the other partner. The result was seen in continual wrangling, reproaches, and insults, in the course of which the two had become entirely estranged from one another. This individual certainly retained some small portion of his social feeling for his fellow-men, but even this was suppressed by his striving for superiority, at least so far as his wife and friends were concerned.
We learned the following facts from the story of his life. Up to his seventeenth year he was practically undeveloped physically. His voice was still the voice of a young boy, he had no hair on his face or body, and he was one of the smallest of the boys with whom he associated. Now at thirty-six years of age his external appearance is normal and is entirely masculine; Nature has seemingly caught up with herself and completed everything which she had hardly begun to fashion when he was seventeen. But for eight years he suffered from this failure of development, and he had no ground for hoping that Nature would ever compensate for the fallow time. During this entire period he was tortured with the thought that he must always remain a "child," and already the beginnings of his present characteristics could be noted. He acted as though he were very important and as if every action had the utmost weight. Every movement served the purpose of bringing him into the centre of attention. In the course of time he acquired those characteristics which we see in him to-day. During married life he was continually occupied with impressing upon his wife the fact that he was really bigger and more important than she thought, and she was continually busied with showing him that his assertions concerning his value were untrue! Under these circumstances their marriage (both of the partners having already shown signs of disruption during their engagement) could hardly be expected to develop favourably, and the end was a social cataclysm. At this point, however, the patient came to the physician, since the dissolution of his marriage had served only to accentuate the dilapidation of his already battered self-esteem. In order to effect a cure, the first thing to be learnt from the physician was how to know human nature, and to estimate the extent of the error he had made in life. And this error, this wrong evaluation of his inferiority, had coloured his entire life up to the time of his coming for treatment.
Fuente: Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine (Londres) 20 (1927), Section of Psychiatry, págs. 1881-1886 (paginación de la sección: 25-30); al pie de la primera página, «[May 10, 1927.», fecha de la sesión de la sección en que se presentó. Traducción inglesa de Walter Béran Wolfe. Transcripción a partir de las imágenes de las páginas en PubMed Central (procrsmed01193-0067 a 0072) y de un OCR propio, cotejado con ellas. El texto corresponde en lo esencial al capítulo «Minderwertigkeitsgefühl und Geltungsstreben» de Menschenkenntnis (1927). Se respeta «their ambition is a social one» (probablemente por asocial). Los comentarios p. n del código marcan el comienzo de cada página impresa (paginación del volumen).