The Forgotten Ideas of Alfred Adler

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I was curious to see if anyone knows a great deal more than what the typical psychology textbook would know of Mr. Adler. I found it intriguing that he actually had ideas which Carl Jung took off from him, despite being so popular, nobody today really knows the entirety of his ideas. Due to his kind and agreeable it seems (Celebrity Types types him as ENFJ), he didn't really mind if his ideas were solidified and proven as he wanted everyone to come up with their own and flourish from their own ideas.​

Below is a list of psychological contributions that originated with Adler, but which are rarely acknowledged as Adler’s ideas. Many of these ideas are commonly thought to have originated with Jung:

• Emphasizing the individual over ‘society,’ yet also seeing the individual as an expression of something greater that ultimately hawks back to all life

• The idea of psychological compensation (though Freud also had such ideas)

• Extending the concept of psychic energy, or libido, beyond the mechanistic limits first set by Freud (this expanded conception of libido is also used by Jung in Psychological Types)

• Patient and therapist should face each other (rather than face away from each other, as dictated by Freud)

• The ideal time frame of therapy is 1-2 times a week, rather than 4-5 times a week as suggested by Freud (Jung also supported Adler’s time frame)

• The current psychic outlook of the patient is more important than the patient’s childhood history

• The idea that the personality yearns towards integration and wholeness

• The idea that the personality strives towards individuation in balance with society (rather than at the cost of society as with the Nietzschean superman)

• The idea that personality complexes are psychic rather than physiological in nature

• The idea that popular groups and movements of the times are not random “historical fashions” or “historical extrapolations,” but that they express deep-seated psychological needs of the community (for example, in his book Civilization in Transition Jung says that the fascination with UFOs speaks to a community in need of wholeness. In a similar vein, he would probably have said that the 9/11 Truth movement speaks to a populace that yearns for government officials that they can deem accountable and benign.)

Adler’s Contributions to Psychology | CelebrityTypes