Alfred Adler and the Concept of Individual Psychology: The Self-Conscious Process of Personality Development
In studying human personality and its development, among the prominent and well-known names in the field of psychology is Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. However, another name that emerges as equally vital in developing the study of personality is Alfred Adler. In psychoanalytical psychology, Adler introduced the well-known concepts inferiority and superiority complexes, two extreme forms of personality development resulting from exaggerated feelings of inadequacy and adequacy, respectively.Both inferiority and superiority complexes are part of Adler's more general theoretical framework, which is called the individual psychology. Under this theoretical framework, he argued that individuals are "creators of their own lives." This means that an individual has the choice to decide for himself/herself what behavior to adopt and actions to take. It pointedly deviates from the Freudian nature of human psychology and personality development, wherein the unconscious acts another agent within the individual that radically alters the individual's behavior and
Just like values and beliefs, an individual's personality is developed and strengthened through time. Modification and reinforcement happens everyday, and the individual learns how to use everyday experiences to improve his/her personality as s/he engages with different people and different experiences everyday. An individual who has a strong motivation to achieve a particular goal-that is, to graduate in college or become an athlete-would do so consciously, along with the conscious effort to shape his/her personality that a hardworking student or a successful athlete should have. Once the individual learns to overcome weaknesses or some insecurities in this developed personality, it (personality) will assert itself and develop to be the individual's personality, sometimes for the rest of his/her life. personality without him/her knowing it. Thus, as compared to Freud's psychoanalytical theory of human personality, Adler's is a more individualistic and person-centric view of how people develop, become what they are, and learn to assert the person
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Approximate Word count = 713
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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