Dr. Alfred Adler
There are some points which it is not necessary to emphasize to a society for prison reform; but one point I must really emphasize. It comes within the province of my own science, it concerns the means of understanding an individual of knowing why he has developed in the way he has and not in some other way. To understand all his actions and expressions we must find out the great motive which streams through his whole being and dominates all his symptoms and expressions. We are not infallible, nor blessed with absolute truth. The normal mind and normal individual does not exist. We all vary and it is only if we are fortunate and do not suffer from great mistakes, that we feel normal and behave rightly.
Therefore, whatever failure we find in life must be seen as a variety of human behavior. Even if we are not pleased by this, still we must see it in this way. This is the only standpoint from which we can make the right approach to any person. Otherwise he would resent our actions. He would not speak with us, he would not open his soul.
Now, from this standpoint, we can understand that all the failures in life are really failures in building up a style of life. If you look, for instance, at a problem child, at a neurotic or insane person, at a criminal, a suicide, a sexual pervert or a drunkard, you will find in one point they are all equal. You can choose different names for it, but the greatest common denominator in all these failures is a lack of social interest.
This lack of social interest means much more. It does not mean only that such a person is not interested in other people. It means also that his scheme of apperception differs from what we expect in regard to our fellowmen. He looks differently, he listens differently, he concludes differently, he has different methods of receiving and answering. And, therefore, we call him abnormal.
This, then, is the task of psychology. Psychology is really concerned with finding out why so many persons have peculiar attitudes which do not correspond with what we expect—cooperation, social interest.
We know when an individual fails, and takes another way from the one we want for him. We know also that he develops this bent very early in his childhood. Perhaps the first four or five years' time is sufficient for establishing a way of living. In this period the child trains himself, he trains himself every day, every hour, until he is a fixed unit; until he acts as an entity, has his own eyes, his owns ears, his own heart, and, what I especially emphasized, his own degree of ability of cooperation. In this way he continues in the world; and when he meets problems in the world we shall see that if he is wrongly trained, his answers will be wrong.This is another point which must really be underlined: all the problems of life which we meet demand cooperation, demand social adjustment. This need begins very early, in the first days of life. A child must learn to cooperate with his mother. This is the first social problem. We can gauge his development in cooperation by observing how he behaves when a younger child comes into the family, how he behaves in regard to change of his environment—when he enters school and is confronted with the problems of friendship, comradeship; when the necessity comes to train for an occupation in life, in school or after school; when he must meet the problems of love and marriage. All these occasions call for an interest in others. If he has not learned this interest, if he has not trained himself in it, if he represents the variant, "unable to develop interest in others," then what shall we see? We shall see that he does not behave rightly. We know why he does not behave rightly—he is not trained rightly. He has not found the right method. From this point we can understand and give recognition to this great movement for prison reform. We will not regard criminals just as guilty sinners; we can find out the reasons why they have not developed in a better way.
There are different men in different schools who talk about crime. There are schools which emphasize, for instance, heredity. I, personally, believe that, if we want to accomplish anything, this point of view should disappear entirely from the world. If inherited tendencies were the real reason for crimes nothing could be done. If something can be done, then heredity is not the reason. In that case we must find a method to overcome the difficulties of inheritance. In regard to mental ability nobody knows what is really inherited, because on the first day, when the child appears in the world, the exertions he makes are always influenced by the mother. Whatever his abilities, his strength, his characteristics may be, the mother has interfered so much that we have no means of determining what might be inherited. Heredity can never be looked upon as an explanation.
There are other schools which emphasize endocrine glands, or organic defects. I was among the first of those who described the great importance of defects in the endocrine glands and other organic defects. I believe, however, that stressing these factors as causative is a mistake. The difficulty and the burden for such children, comes only if we do not afford the right treatment and training for them. If we find the right method in medicine or in education, they can play a normal role in life.
What is important is that such children be trained in social interest. They must gain the ability of cooperation and a true estimate of life, of the way in which an individual must face this world. It is true that among failures, among criminals, we often find persons who have been suffering from birth and persons who have some signs of degeneration but we find the same also among outstanding and worthwhile individuals. The constant factor that we find among failures is a lack of training in cooperation.
Such a person, confronted by social problems, is not prepared for them. He feels inferior. No human being can stand for a long time the feeling of inferiority. He is always striving in his mind, always looking for a goal of completion, of security, and he is doing it for the purpose of overcoming difficulties and obtaining a feeling of superiority.
There is one way in which children should be trained from their birth and this is "towards the useful side of life." We demand and expect social interest and cooperation. If they have to overcome the feeling of inferiority, they may escape towards the useless side. On the useless side you meet all the failures; you meet also the criminals. To strengthen the tendency towards the useful side, the training in social interest is necessary; only an education in social interest and cooperation can overcome defects in the individual.
I will mention two other types we find very often among the criminals. These are pampered children and neglected children. Among pampered children we discover that they have a mistaken estimate of life—they desire to receive, never to give. They find very soon that life does not pay. What is life for, they ask? Now with such an attitude they cannot develop interest in mankind; their tendency to help mankind, to strive for the welfare of mankind is not trained, is not developed. It is very easy, therefore, for them to do things and to act as persons act who are not interested in others. When crimes are committed you see very clearly that those who commit them are not interested in other people. Only a person who is interested in others can resist in difficulties and keep from committing crimes.
Not only pampered children, but neglected children also are untrained and untaught in social interest. Neglected children do not know that such things exist. It is a great reflection on our culture that among these neglected children we find so many orphans, so many illegitimate children, so many unwanted children or children who have not been as popular and loved as others. Often, among these last, we find ugly children, and can understand why among criminals we so often meet the ugly individual. An ugly child may experience lack of appreciation; may feel unwelcome. The result is that he does not look upon the world as a nice place, he works against it. The method is not found to reconcile him and he becomes the criminal.
We find, also, handsome criminals. These are the pampered children. You can really distinguish very quickly—sometimes in a single moment—the great part their physical appearance has had in building up their character. We should get very far if we could understand such a criminal; because then we could go further and do what is the most necessary thing in prison reform—the improvement of that criminal.
All daily activities can be turned to use, provided that we have an understanding of the individual criminal. We know that they must be educated. We know that we must teach them social interest. This is a definite art and can best be accomplished by persons who are themselves socially interested and cooperative. You will recall among criminals, individuals whose very looks show a lack of social interest, who listen in a different way, who speak a different language, whose expressions are not in accordance with what we expect.
Let us picture briefly the psychic structure of a criminal, and discuss why he is a criminal and does not commit suicide, or become a sexual pervert—though these may often go together. As far as my experience goes—and it is very probable that it is really so—a person who is socially not adjusted becomes a criminal when he is confronted by some problem which he cannot solve although he has not yet broken down in the special activity but is striving very hard to be superior. We always find some such situation when his criminal career begins to be apparent. We know the roots of the criminal attitude are very deep, going back to the first four or five years. We can find the situation which was dangerous for him, which made him sick, which made him a criminal. And we can understand the reason. We can find in every similar case that this situation could not be solved by him—could not be solved because the situation demanded social interest and he had none.
For instance, he was unemployed, or he was incited by a bad companion, or he met a girl who wanted presents and a "good time." These are situations which he could not face rightly. He could not say, "I want to solve this problem in a useful way."
There is more than this in the phychic structure of a criminal, but these are the points most immediately connected with his lack of cooperation. He is not interested in others. He is not making friends easily. The criminal mostly makes friends among his own kind because he is looking for others like himself. This means that he decreases his sphere of activity and excludes other types. He wants to have it easier. He can be a good comrade to his equals, but never towards others.
We find also—this is a very important point and should be known all over the world—that the criminal is always a coward. There are persons who believe a criminal can be a hero. Children especially are often lured to believe this; in some films or works of fiction, the criminal is pictured as a hero. Everyone who has to do with criminals knows that they are cowards. They are sometimes afraid of ghosts, nearly always superstitious, they tremble in the dark and so on. We cannot be deceived, because we have seen them escaping from the problems of life; we have seen that they are deserters. We can never believe that the person who is not able, does not feel able to solve as criminals say, the "terrible conditions of life," could be a hero, a really courageous person. We can understand also theoretically why he cannot be courageous—because courage is one part of social interest. Only socially interested persons can be courageous, because they feel a part of the whole; they know they belong to this world; they know that not only the advantages but also the disadvantages of our life belong to them, are their own. They feel at home. And, therefore, they are courageous. This means courageous in meeting usefully the normal problems of life.
There is a point, which is more difficult to explain. The criminal has a peculiar method of apperception. He perceives all the events in his own way. What does it pay? What shall I receive? Am I ahead? And so on. These are the most important points in the mind of a criminal. His highest goal is to conquer. Whom does he conquer? Always weaker persons. If he is a pickpocket, the person he robs is not attentive. If he is a burglar he uses the dark, and isolation. If he is a murderer, he draws a weapon at a time when the other person cannot defend himself. You will see in all his actions the same cowardice which I have mentioned. And I am sure that if children knew—but they generally do not know—that the criminal is always a coward, and his is only a mean imitation of heroism, they would not like the thought of crime so much. I am sure also that the criminals, themselves, would not like it so much.
You find among children, or you find in the beginning of the assimilation of culture in the old philosophies that things are generally distinguished in contradiction to or in antithesis to other things. The same thing is true of criminals. "My boy is useless," a woman will say. This is the last stage. "Because my boy is sick and a loafer, I have to kill him." You see that there is a certain primate intelligence to this. What she means is, he is not useful to her. He is in a bad way. What she does not see is that she is erecting an antithesis—healthy, industrious and living; as against loafing and needing to be poisoned. Or a murderer says, this man has nice trousers, and I have no trousers, therefore, I must kill him. Really, after he has excluded all the useful aspects of the case, he acts intelligently. Nothing more is left for him. What we really find is that there is an intoxicating process going on in the mind of every criminal. He excites himself by always thinking of the goal in which he is a conqueror; in which, because he is weak, he must conquer and where he enjoys money, girls, whatever he desires in an easy way. Through this process he excludes all objections, and all the other ways of action.
When you study the individual criminal you find how he plans, how he constructs his crime, and that he is always resisting the objections of social interest. Because he pursues me, because he has been a friend of a man who killed my brother-in-law, therefore, I must kill him, and so on. Because of interference in my business, as you hear very often in America. These are the reasons. And, always in pursuit of their highest goal, which is a conquest. They are intoxicated.
One very important point I must mention in spite of the shortness of our time. This is the continual struggle and battle against the police and against the laws. Every criminal feels superior, every criminal believes he is able to overcome the police, he feels he is able because every criminal has really experienced this fact. It is very rare that you find a criminal who has not committed other crimes without being discovered.
Now, imagine what it means in the mind of a criminal when he is discovered and jailed. There is always the impression, I have not been clever enough. If I had been more clever, I could not have been discovered. Even if you electrocute him there is always this idea: "I was not clever enough." He does not think of other considerations. He thinks only, "A little bit more clever and I would have been the conquerer." It is not very different for instance, from Napoleon when he was sitting at Helena. He always said, "If I had been cleverer, if I had gone first to Spain and later to Russia, I would have conquered the whole world."
Now this "if", you see, is always in the way, so that the criminal cannot understand.
There are certain other things which I must also mention. We individual psychologists have learned and have trained ourselves, never to challenge a problem child, never to fight a problem child. There is no use in it. For the most part they are stronger, and are the conquerers. They like very much to be challenged in order that they may show their strength. If we look around, we always find that criminals are challenged. "You cannot escape me, in five days I will have you. I will clean you up." This is what happens outside the prison, and it also happens inside. When they are prisoners, I find they are challenged too much. Sometimes the discipline of prisons is such as to challenge them, so that they go out full of revenge. Then they are not able to change. They feel the whole world is against them, and there is no use in cooperating, in contributing, creating, being socially interested. They are in a trap, and experience always the same conditions. When they go out from prison, are on probation, or if they have a job, their experience is the same. You can understand that it is not possible for persons who are not psychologists or philosophers to understand the terrible incoherence of their point of view. Therefore, they are, increasingly fixed in their style of life, in their mistakes and their lack of social interest. There is no attempt made to train them in what would be the only way to save them. Therefore, it happens that we have so many repeated crimes.
There are many other points I should mention; one in particular is that most criminals have really always been standing in the shadow. They have generally experienced from their first childhood the austerity of life. Even when they have been pampered, the pampered child is living in what seems to him an enemy country. He wants only one person, and therefore, he feels that the world is full of hostility. When these pampered children come to school they are not prepared; they are reproached, criticized, punished, through their whole life. This is not the right situation. They come from families where there is often little social interest. They come from broken marriages. They come from families where the father, for instance, has not been interested, where another child has been preferred, thrown into more prominence, the favorite of the family. Such things we will find always; we will find reasons why they could not develop social interest. We cannot demand more from them. We see that they have been defeated, and have failed, in the most important part of their life.
Fortunately, at the same time we see that social interest must be trained and can be trained. This is the way in which we can diminish the great wave of crime which has invaded our whole civilization. How can we prevent it? I have spoken about the cure, about the treatment. There is a possibility of preventing it. The first thought would be, "Perhaps we could teach all the parents." This is not possible. There is another way, however, to prevent crime. The teachers can be trained to be instruments for treatment and for the development of social interest; they could be trained not only to teach geography, or drawing and so forth, but also to teach and train in social interest.
The teachers must be told how to do this. I believe, it would be a very important step towards preventing, not only crimes, but also all other failures of life, if we could make the schools instruments for training in social interest and progress.
## ProposalIn order to determine the most successful method of dealing with the criminal and in order that each of the schools should have an equal chance to show what they can accomplish, Individual Psychology proposes that there should be established several clinics in which should be tried the methods of the psychoanalysts, the gland specialists, the brain-pathologists, the behaviorists, and so forth.
Fuente: Alfred Adler, The Individual Criminal and His Cure. An Address, New York, National Committee on Prisons and Prison Labor, 1930, 18 pp.; discurso pronunciado en la 21.ª reunión anual del Comité, en el Hotel St. Regis de Nueva York, el 14 de abril de 1930. Transcripción hecha sobre las imágenes de página del ejemplar de la Ohio State University digitalizado por Google en HathiTrust (osu.32435011046992, dominio público; 22 secuencias), descargadas a mano (secuencias 5-20, pp. 3-18; copia local materiales/1930/osu.32435011046992-seq_5.jpg … seq_20.jpg), leídas directamente de la imagen. No se han manejado las secuencias 1-4 (cubierta y pp. 1-2, presumiblemente portada y su vuelta) ni 21-22 (tras la p. 18, en la que acaba el texto impreso, con media página en blanco: presumiblemente guardas y contracubierta); el texto de Adler (pp. 3-10) está completo. Se transcribe solo lo de Adler: su conferencia (pp. 3-9) y la «Proposal» (p. 10), que habla en nombre de la psicología individual y que los demás oradores llaman «Dr. Adler's proposal». Se omite la «Discussion» (pp. 10-18): Ellis apoya la propuesta de clínicas, expone la clasificación de los presos de Nueva Jersey de Edgar A. Doll (citada por extenso) y pide consultorios en tribunales y escuelas; Farnell coincide en el tratamiento individual, pero discute que la fealdad o la deformidad causen el delito («demasiado próximo a Lombroso») y el «sentimiento social innato» y advierte contra tomar la psicología individual por una panacea; Thayer pide psiquiatras, psicólogos y sociólogos en las escuelas y la sentencia indeterminada, y apoya probar los métodos de los especialistas como sugiere Adler. Farnell cita palabras de Adler que no están en el texto impreso («show the criminal that his way of living is mistaken, that his courage is not courage») y le atribuye haber dicho que un gran paso sería educar a padres y maestros, lo que hace pensar que el folleto no reproduce literalmente lo dicho. Se conservan las erratas del impreso: «owns ears» (p. 4), «phychic» (p. 6), «primate intelligence» por primitive (p. 7), «his is only» (p. 7), «conquerer» (p. 8, dos veces), «at Helena» (p. 8). Crónicas de la misma sesión en el archivo: «Debate Psychiatry as Cure for Crime» (The New York Times, 15-4-1930) y «Dr. Adler Opposes Severe Sentences» (Buffalo Evening News, 15-4-1930). Los comentarios p. n marcan el comienzo de cada página impresa.