Understanding Human Nature: The Feeling of Inferiority

Alfred Adler grew up in Vienna as a sickly child; he could not walk properly until he was four, and he almost died of pneumonia.He became a doctor, worked with Sigmund Freud for nine years, and then broke away to found his own school, Individual Psychology.

“Every child begins life in a position of weakness.Growing up among adults, a child feels small, weak and unable to live alone, and sooner or later it becomes aware that it cannot meet life’s challenges by itself.This feeling of inferiority is the driving force, the starting point from which every child’s striving begins.It decides how the child will look for peace and security, and it sets the very goal of the child’s life.

Many mistakes in raising children begin here: we demand more than a child can do, and so we throw its helplessness in its face.Some children are treated as toys, others as valuable property, and others as useless baggage.Laughing at children is almost a crime, for an adult who was always laughed at as a child can never quite escape the fear of looking ridiculous.

To make up for this feeling of inferiority, every person strives for recognition and for superiority.We set ourselves a goal, a fixed point that does not really exist, like the lines of longitude on a map, and we use it to find our way in the confusion of life.This goal gives meaning to our feelings, shapes our imagination, and even decides what we remember and what we forget.We cannot judge any person without comparing their goal of power over others with the strength of their feeling for their fellow human beings.”