Alfred Adler Basic Human Motivation

Alfred Adler

• Basic Human Motivation:

• Drive for Superiority, the desire for self-improvement, an “upward drive” for perfection.

• Basic Human Problem:

• Inferiority Complex, extreme feelings of weakness or inadequacy; involves an inability to accept natural limitations.

Inferiority Feelings and Personality

• Feelings of inferiority are a natural part of personality development. They start in childhood when we compare ourselves to adults and continue into adulthood when we discover limitations to our abilities.

• The natural and healthy reaction to inferiority feelings is Compensation, efforts to overcome real or imagined inferiority by developing one’s abilities.

Healthy Versus Unhealthy Processes

Adler Versus Freud

"Heredity and environment provide the bricks; the final form of the building is up to us".