--- Title: Feelings and Emotions from the Standpoint of Individual Psychology Description: In: Martin L. Reymert (ed.), Feelings and Emotions: The Wittenberg Symposium, Worcester, Mass.: Clark University Press, 1928 (The International University Series in Psychology), chapter 27, pp. 316-321. Author: Alfred Adler URL: https://adler.school/archivo/adler/original/1928%20Feelings%20and%20Emotions%20from%20the%20Standpoint%20of%20Individual%20Psychology --- # Feelings and Emotions from the Standpoint of Individual Psychology Alfred Adler, Vienna It is obvious that the style of life does not solely rule an individual. The attitudes do not alone create the symptoms, nor do they alone build up the whole neurosis as a security for not going on. To this must be added also feelings which do not hinder the person’s strivings on the useless side. This is a new view in psychology and is presented in contradiction to other conceptions. Individual psychology does not consider the part of mind and psyche as separate but rather as a whole. What we see in this view is no longer physiological or biological and cannot be explained by chemical or technical examination. We presuppose all the right physiological results, but we are more interested in the goal. Our interest is not that anxiety influences the nervous sympaticus and the parasympaticus, but what is the end and aim? We are very interested in where a feeling has arisen, but we mean the psychical rather than the bodily roots, striving towards totality. We do not believe that anxiety arises from suppression of sexuality nor as the result of birth. We are not interested in such explanations, but we know and understand that a child who is accustomed to be accompanied by the mother uses anxiety—whatever its source may be—to arrive at his goal of superiority to control the mother. In this we are not concerned with a description of anger, but we are experienced enough to see that anger is a means to overcome a person or a situation. We believe that only such a viewpoint is a psychological one, and not other views such as the description of feelings, emotions, and affects, or such as, for example, that of inherited instincts. It can be taken for granted that every bodily and mental power must have inherited material, but what we see in mind and psyche is the use of this material toward a certain goal. In all the cases we have described up to now we have seen the feelings and emotions grown in such a direction and to such a degree as was essential to attain the neurotic goal. The anxiety, sadness, and all the characteristics have run the way we could predict, and have always agreed with the style of life. We have also seen that dreams have a similar purpose to arrange the feelings and that they are influenced by the neurotic goal. They give us a remarkable insight into the workshop of the soul. A person who accomplishes his goal of superiority by sadness cannot be gay and satisfied in the accomplishment. He can only be happy when he is unhappy. We can also notice that feelings appear and disappear when needed. The patient suffering from agoraphobia loses the feeling of anxiety when he is at home or ruling another person. We come to the point of view that all neurotic patients *exclude* all the parts of life in which they do not feel well and strong enough to be the conqueror. Character is much more fixed. For example, a coward is always a coward, even though he shows arrogance (against a weaker person) or courage when he is shielded. If he locks the door with three locks, protects himself with watchdogs, guns, and policemen, and insists he is very courageous, nobody could prove a *feeling* of anxiety. However, that he is cowardly in character is proved by the fact that he sought protection. The realm of sexuality and love is similar. The feelings belonging to them appear always when a person has a desire to approach his sexual goal. His attention and concentration have a tendency to exclude contradictions and conflicting tasks and thus evoke the right feelings and functions. The lack of these feelings and functions—such as impotence, ejaculation praecox, perversions, frigidity—are all established by not excluding other tasks and by contradictions. Such abnormalities are always influenced by a neurotic goal of superiority and a mistaken style of life. In these cases we always find the tendency to expect and not to give. There exists a lack of social feeling, courage, and optimistic activity. As we have shown, social feeling is of the greatest importance in treatment and education. This feeling is the inevitable supplement of the organic weaknesses of human beings. From the biological side we cannot think of a human being without thinking of social feeling. The new-born animal needs to be supported for a certain length of time, as does the human child. The pregnant animal needs much care before, during, and after birth as does woman. Mankind could not persist without cooperation and social culture. This culture demands common efforts for education. To accomplish the three questions of life it is necessary, as we have seen, to develop sufficient social feeling. As far as we can see, only the possibilities for the development of social feeling are inborn. There is no use in trusting social instincts because these can be destroyed or increased. The most important factor in the development of social feeling is, as we have shown, the mother. *In his mother every child has his first contact with a trustworthy fellow-creature.* This is the first change in the behavior of a child and the first circuitous expression of his desires and organic drives. His interest includes himself and his mother. The goal of all his strivings is, as before, to overcome the difficulties of life and to gain superiority. We can presuppose that such a helpless being striving for satisfaction has a feeling of inferiority. This feeling of inferiority becomes later the stimulus among all individuals, whether children or adults, to establish their actions in such a way that they arrive at a goal of superiority. The first concretization of this goal is the spoiling mother. This goal cannot be fixed permanently. She must, therefore, in this phase try to give the child freedom so that he will be able to establish a style of life which will enable him to seek for superiority on the useful side. The mother must then use a second function, which is to spread the interest of the child to other persons and situations. In this way she makes the child independent so that he feels a part of the whole environment and at home in the world. In this way the mother creates inevitably, in connection with this social feeling, independence, self-confidence, and courage. The goal of such a child will be to become a fellow-man, such as a friend, a useful worker, a true partner in love. Whatever place he may occupy, the degree of his social feeling, courage, and optimistic activity will be influenced by his goal to be superior as a fellow-man on the useful side of life. We cannot emphasize too much the fact that all the feelings of an individual are dependent upon the content of social feeling in his individual goal of superiority. We can now understand why all actions on the useless side of life among problem children, neurotics, criminals, suicides, sexual perverts, and prostitutes are caused by a lack in social feeling, courage, and self-confidence. We can understand it better when we realize that all the questions of life are social, such as kindergarten, school, companionship, occupation, love, marriage. All these questions demand a well-trained and automatized social feeling. For example, if a boy terrified by illness and death wishes to overcome this fright by being a doctor, he has selected a more social goal than another boy in the same situation who wishes to become a grave-digger. A lower degree of this automatized social feeling is the same as too great an interest for one’s self. Therefore, we can add at this point—what we have pointed out before—that, as a rule, we find this lower degree of social feeling among individuals with a great feeling of inferiority, and this appears in the style of life of spoiled or hated children with imperfect organs. We can conclude also that feelings are always in connection with the whole. They are never independent expressions and never in themselves real arguments for action. They will, nevertheless, always be used in this way and influence our secondary decisions from time to time. The most important single factor in individual psychology is what we have called a feeling of inferiority. This forms the background for all our studies. We can ascertain this feeling of inferiority only from the actions of an individual. In the beginning of life it is very varied, for we see many expressions of it in order to overcome the urges and the feeling itself. We find from these expressions that they are connected with the strength or weakness of the organs and the environment. These react upon each other and influence the degree of the feeling. The remarkable part of this is that neither the inherited material nor the *milieu* are responsible for this; neither is it the result of both together. The degree of the feeling of inferiority is due to both of these plus the reaction of the child. We cannot expect that a child, normal or abnormal, reacts from a stimulus in an absolutely right way. Living material as opposed to dead material always reacts more or less in a mistaken manner. In a study of children in their earliest years we discover three types: 1. Children with imperfect organs. They need more time and more effort than others to integrate. 2. Spoiled children. They are not free to function alone and they develop in the direction of always wishing to be supported. They are attacked on all sides because of this behavior, fall in an inimicable environment, and are, therefore, under strain. 3. Hated children (illegitimate, not wanted, ugly, crippled). They have the same difficulties as the second type, but are without the aid of a supporting person. After some time these strained efforts, particular interests and attention become mechanical, and this living machine has its own life-plan of how to accomplish the three questions of life. The tension among these children gives them a greater impetus, and forces them to seek a higher goal of security and superiority than the average. After this goal has been established, the characteristics, attitudes, and feelings are fixed and agree wholly with the purpose to attain it. The impressions, perceptions, and expressions are now selected and seen in this perspective through a prejudiced mind. Such an individual views everything he experiences from all sides until he can assimilate it to his style of life. This is equivalent to how he wishes to solve the three problems of life. Because these three types have a greater feeling of inferiority, they have less social feeling and a greater visible interest for themselves. We thus come to the conclusion that feeling of inferiority and social feeling are connected with, and belong to, the life-plan with which they must agree. It is not a contradiction if the surface view does not appear so. I once met a very rich old lady, who dominated her whole family. She had no interest for society and only associated with her own relatives. She had great fame as a benevolent woman. This feeling of pity does not seem to agree with her unsocial life. One day I visited her and found her crying. Before her stood an old man weeping. I asked her, “Why do you cry?” She answered, “Look at this poor old man. He has five starving children. He cannot pay his rent and must leave his home unless he pays the £10 due. I can give him only £5.” I replied, “You must not cry; let me add to your great gift my small gift of £5.” She thanked me and said, “I have always known you are a good man.” I replied, “Oh, I am only a quarter as good as you are.” As we can see, this feeling of pity and sadness has only agreed with her desire to feel superior over this poor man. If we judge a feeling separated from other expressions and the style of life, we recognize only the physiological factors. For a psychological understanding we must know the goal towards which the feelings run. A patient of mine, a second boy in a family, developed a feeling of guilt. The father was very honest, as was also the older brother. The older brother was very much beloved and the second boy strove to overcome him, as is usual with second children. He was seven years old when he deceived his teacher in school by telling him he had achieved a task alone, although his brother had done it for him. After concealing his guilty feeling for three years, my patient went to the teacher and told him how he had lied. The teacher merely laughed at him. He went to his father and discussed this matter with him with a great feeling of sadness. The father enjoyed this love of truth and praised and consoled his son. But the boy always felt depressed, thinking in his compulsion neurosis that he was a liar in spite of the fact that he had been pardoned. Considering the circumstances, we cannot help the impression that this boy wished to prove his great integrity by accusing himself for such a trifle. The high moral atmosphere of the home gave him the impulse to excel in integrity because he felt inferior to his brother in schoolwork and in attractiveness. Later in life he suffered from other self-reproaches as a sinner, because he masturbated and was not wholly honest in his studies. This feeling always increased before he took an examination. As we can see, in going on he collected difficulties so that he felt himself much more burdened than his brother and, therefore, had an excuse for not being superior. When he left the university he planned to do technical work. However, his compulsion neurosis increased so greatly that he prayed all day to God to forgive him, and so he was unable to work. He was put in an asylum and was there considered as incurable. When he had improved, he left the asylum and asked permission to be readmitted if he should have a relapse. He changed his occupation and studied the history of art. Before he was to have an examination in this, he visited a church. It was a holiday and the church was very crowded. He prostrated himself and cried, “I am the greatest sinner.” He was thus the center of attention. He again went to the asylum, where he remained a long time. One day he came to lunch naked. He was a well-built man and could compete in this point with his brother and others. His feeling of guilt was a means to make him appear more honest than others, but on the useless side of life. His escape from examinations and occupations was a sign of cowardice and a too great feeling of inferiority. For these reasons he made a purposive exclusion of all activities in which he feared defeat. His prostration in the church and his shocking entrance to the dining-room were also cheap expressions of his striving for superiority. We conclude rightly that in the same way his feelings of guilt also meant an effort to be superior. --- *Fuente:* Martin L. Reymert (ed.), *Feelings and Emotions: The Wittenberg Symposium*, Worcester (Massachusetts), Clark University Press, 1928, cap. 27, págs. 316-321; actas del simposio celebrado en el Wittenberg College (Springfield, Ohio) en octubre de 1927. Transcripción a partir del ejemplar digitalizado en archive.org (volumen completo), con el OCR de la plataforma corregido sobre la imagen de las páginas (cursivas, numeración de la lista, comillas). Se respetan las grafías del original («sympaticus», «parasympaticus», «inimicable»). La primera página del capítulo no lleva número impreso. Los comentarios `p. n` del código marcan el comienzo de cada página impresa.