Alfred Adler Flashcards
holds that everyone begins life with physical deficiencies that activate feelings of inferiority—feelings that motivate a person to strive for either superiority or success.
Individual Psychology
People strive toward this of either personal superiority or the goal of success for all humankind; is fictional and has no objective existence.
final goal
people’s ability to freely shape their behavior and create their own style of life and personality; places control in our life
Creative Power
It is the flavor of a person’s life; it includes a person’s goal, self-concept, feelings for others, and attitude toward the world; it is the product of the interaction of heredity, environment, and a person’s creative power.
Style of Life
The manner in which people strive is not shaped by reality. are called fictions, or the expectations of the future.
Subjective Perceptions
are ideas that have no real existence, yet they influence people as if they really existed.
Fictions
this is our most important fiction.
The goal of superiority or success
thoughts are those that are understood and regarded by the individual as helpful in striving for success.
Conscious
thoughts are those that are not helpful.
Unconscious
an attitude of relatedness with humanity in general and empathy for each member of the human community.
Social interest
a feeling of oneness with humanity
Gemeinschaftsgefühl
this is the condition in which the deficient organ expresses the direction of individual’s goal. This holds that the body’s organ “speak in language which is usually more expressive and discloses the individual’s opinion more clearly than words are able to do”.
Organ dialect
(organ jargon)
ABNORMAL DEVELOPMENT
Neurotics tend to (1) set their goals too high, (2) live in their own private world, and (3) have a rigid and dogmatic style of life.
EXTERNAL FACTORS IN MALADJUSTMENTS
Exaggerated Physical Deficiencies
Pampered Style of Life
Neglected Style of Life
People with this external factor in maladjustment sometimes develop exaggerated feelings of inferiority because they overcompensate for their inadequacy.
Exaggerated Physical Deficiencies
characterized by extreme discouragement, indecisiveness, oversensitivity, impatience, and exaggerated emotion, especially anxiety. They also believe that they are entitled to be the first in everything.
Pampered People
(Pampered Style of Life)
is a relative concept, meaning, it depends on each person whether he would feel neglected or not, because no one is totally neglected or completely unwanted.
Neglect
(Neglected Style of Life)
The most common safeguarding tendency. Typically expressed in the “Yes, but” or “If only” format. These protect a weak but artificially inflated sense of self-worth and deceive people into believing that they are more superior than they really are.
Excuses
some people use this to safeguard their exaggerated superiority complex, that is, to protect their fragile self-esteem.
Aggression
the tendency to undervalue other people’s achievements and to overvalue one’s own; evident in aggressive behaviors such as criticism and gossip.
Depreciation
the tendency to blame others for one’s failures and to seek revenge, thereby safeguarding one’s own tenuous self-esteem.
Accusation
marked by self-torture and guilt. Some people use self-torture, including masochism, depression, and suicide, as means of hurting people who are close to them.
Self-accusation
is often aggressive, self-accusatory behavior.
Guilt
Halting personality development by running away from difficulties; also defined as safeguarding through distance.
Withdrawal
the tendency to safeguard one’s fictional goal of superiority by psychologically reverting to a more secure period of life; similar to Freud’s concept of regression.
Moving Backwards
similar to moving backward but, in general, it is not as severe; not moving in any direction, thus, avoiding all responsibility by ensuring themselves against any threat of failure.
Standing Still
vacillating when faced with difficult problems; involves procrastinations; most compulsive behaviors are attempts to waste time.
Hesitating
the least severe of all safeguarding tendencies; involves building easy obstacles that one can easily come through;
Constructing Obstacles
Protective devices that enable people to hide their inflated self-image and to maintain their current style of life; Operates Conciously
Safeguarding Tendencies
