What Life Could Mean to You

by Alfred Adler

  Chewing a pencil or a cigar gives him an outlet for his tension. These movements show us that he feels himself too much confronted by some situation. It is the same whether he blushes when he is among strangers, begins to tremble or exhibits a tic; they are all results of tension. By means of the vegetative system, the tension is communicated to the whole body; and so, with every emotion, the whole body is itself in a tension. The manifestations of this tension, however, are not as clear at every point; and we speak of Symptoms only in those points where the results are discoverable. If we examine more closely we shall find that every part of the body is involved in an emotional expression; and that these physical expressions are the consequences of the action of the mind and the body. It is always necessary to look for these reciprocal actions of the mind on the body, and of the body on the mind, since both of them are parts of the whole with which we are concerned.

  We may reasonably conclude from such evidence that a style of life and a corresponding emotional disposition exert a continuous influence on the development of the body. If it is true that a child crystallizes its style of life very early, we should be able to discover, if we are experienced enough, the resulting physical expressions in later life. A courageous individual will show the effects of his attitude in his physique. His body will be differently built up; the tonus of his muscles will be stronger, the carriage of his body will be firmer. Posture probably influences very considerably the development of the body and perhaps accounts in part for the better tonus of the muscles. The expression of the face is different in the courageous individual, and, in the end, the whole cast of features. Even the conformation of the skull may be affected.

  To-day it would be difficult to deny that the mind can influence the brain. Pathology has shown cases where an individual has lost the ability to read or write through a lesion in the left hemisphere, but has been able to recover this ability by training other parts of the brain. It often happens that an individual has an apoplectic stroke and there is no possibility of repairing the damaged part of the brain; and yet other parts of the brain compensate, restore the functions of the organs and so complete once more the brain's faculties. This fact is especially important in helping us to show the possibilities of the educational application of Individual Psychology. If the mind can exercise such an influence over the brain; if the brain is no more than the tool of the mind—its most important tool, but still only its tool — then we can find ways to develop and improve this tool. No one born with a certain standard of brain need remain inescapably bound by it all his life: methods may be found to make the brain better fitted for life.

  A mind which has fixed its goal in a mistaken direction — which, for example, is not developing the ability to cooperate — will fail to exercise a helpful influence on the growth of the brain. For this reason we find that many children who lack the ability to cooperate show, in later life, that they have not developed their intelligence, their ability to understand. Since the whole bearing of an adult reveals the influence of the style of life which he built up in the first four or five years, since we can see visibly before us the results of his scheme of apperception and the meaning which he has given to life, we can discover the blocks in cooperation from which he is suffering, and help to correct his failures.

  Already in Individual Psychology we have the first steps towards this science.

  Many authors have pointed out a constant relationship between the expressions of the mind and those of the body. None of them, it seems, has attempted to discover the bridge between the two. Kretschmer, for example, has described how, in the build of the body, we can discover a correspondence with a certain type of mind. He is thus able to distinguish types into which he fits a great proportion of mankind. There are, for instance, the pyknoids, round-faced individuals with short noses and a tendency to corpulence; the men of whom Julius Caesar speaks:

  "Let me have men about me that are fat;

  Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights.”

  (Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2)

  With such a physique Kretschmer correlates specific mental characteristics; but his work does not make clear the reasons for this correlation. In our own conditions, individuals of this physique do not appear as suffering from organ imperfection; their bodies are well suited to our culture. Physically they feel equal to others. They have confidence in their own strength. They are not tense and, if they wished to fight, they would feel capable of fighting. They have no need, however, to look on others as their enemies or to struggle with life as if it were hostile. One school of psychology would call them extraverts, but would offer no explanation. We should expect them to be extraverts, because they suffer no trouble from their bodies.

  A contrasting type which Kretschmer distinguishes is the schizoid, either infantile or unusually tall, long-nosed, with an egg-shaped head. These he believes to be reserved and introspective; and if they suffer from mental disturbances, they become schizophrenic. They are of the other type of which Caesar speaks:

  “Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look;

  He thinks too much; such men are dangerous."

  Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2.

  Perhaps these individuals suffered from imperfect organs and grew up more self-interested, more pessimistic and more "introverted." Perhaps they made more Claims for help, and when they found that they were not sufficiently considered, became bitter and suspicious. We can find, however, as Kretschmer admits, many mixed types, and even pyknoid types who have developed with the mental characteristics attributed to schizoids. We could understand this if their circumstances had burdened them in another way, and they had become timid and discouraged. We could probably, by systematic discouragement, make any child into a person who behaved like a schizoid.

  If we had much experience behind us, we could recognize from all the partial expressions of an individual the degree of his ability to cooperate. Without knowing it, people have always been looking for such signs. The necessity for cooperation is always pressing us; and hints have already been discovered, not scientifically but intuitively, to show us how to orient ourselves better in this chaotic life. In the same way we can see that before all the great adjustments of history the mind of the people had already recognized the necessity for adjustment and was striving to achieve it. So long as the striving is only instinctive, mistakes can easily be made. People have always disliked individuals who had very noticeable physical peculiarities, disfigured persons or hunchbacks. Without knowing it, they were judging them as less fitted for cooperation. This was a great mistake, but their judgment was probably founded an experience. The way had not yet been found to increase the degree of cooperation in individuals who suffered from these peculiarities; their drawbacks were therefore overemphasized, and they became the victims of popular superstition.

  Let us now summarize our position. In the first four or five years of life the child unifies its mental strivings and establishes the root relationships between its mind and its body. A fixed style of life is adopted, with a corresponding emotional and physical habitus. Its development includes a larger or smaller degree of cooperation; and it is from this degree of cooperation that we learn to judge and understand the individual. In all failures the highest common measure is a small degree of ability to cooperate. We can now give a still further definition of psychology: it is the understanding of deficiencies in cooperation. Since the mind is a unity and the same style of life runs through all its expressions, all of an individual's "emotions and thoughts must be consonant with his style of life. If we see emotions that apparently cause difficulties and run counter to the individual's own welfare, it is completely useless to begin by trying to change these emotions. They are the right expression of the individual's style of life, and they can be uprooted only if he changes his style of life.

  Here Individual Psychology gives us a special hint for our educational and therapeutic outlook. We must never treat a Symptom or a single expression: we must dis
cover the mistake made in the whole style of life, in the way the mind has interpreted its experiences, in the meaning it has given to life, and in the actions with which it has answered the impressions received from the body and from the environment. This is the real task of psychology. It is not properly to be called psychology if we stick pins into a child and see how far it jumps, or tickle it and see how loud it laughs. These enterprises, so common among modern psychologists, may in fact tell us something of an individual's psychology; but only in so far as they give evidence of a fixed and particular style of life. Styles of life are the proper subject-matter of psychology and the material for investigation; and schools which take any other subject-matter are occupied, in the main part, with physiology or biology. This holds true of those who investigate stimuli and reactions; those who attempt to trace the effect of a trauma or shocking experience; and those who examine inherited abilities and look to see how they unfold themselves. In Individual Psychology, however, we are considering the psyche itself, the unified mind; we are examining the meaning which individuals give to the world and to themselves, their goals, the direction of their strivings, and the approaches they make to the problems of life. The best key which we so far possess for understanding psychological differences is given by examining the degree of ability to cooperate.

  III. FEELINGS OF INFERIORITY AND SUPERIORITY

  The "inferiority complex", one of the most important discoveries of Individual Psychology, seems to have become world-famous. Psychologists of many schools have adopted the term and use it in their own practice. I am not at all sure, however, that they understand it or use it with the right meaning. It never helps us, for example, to tell a patient that he is suffering from an inferiority complex; to do so would only stress his feelings of inferiority with but showing him how to overcome them. We must recognize the specific discouragement which he shows in his style of life; we must encourage him at the precise point where he falls short in courage. Every neurotic has an inferiority complex. No neurotic is distinguished from other neurotics by the fact that he has an inferiority complex and the others have none. He is distinguished from the others by the kind of situation in which he feels unable to continue on the useful side of life; by the limits he has put to his strivings and activities. It would no more help him to be more courageous if we said to him, "You are suffering from an inferiority complex," than it would help someone with a headache if we said, "I can tell you what is wrong with you. You have a headache!"

  Many neurotics, if they were asked whether they felt inferior, would answer, "No." Some would even answer, "Just the opposite. I know quite well that I am superior to the people around me." We do not need to ask: we need only watch the individual's behavior. It is there that we shall notice what tricks he uses to reassure himself of his importance. If we see someone who is arrogant, for example, we can guess that he feels, "Other people are apt to overlook me. I must show that I am somebody." If we see someone who gesticulates strongly when he speaks, we can guess that he feels, "My words would not carry any weight if I did not emphasize them." Behind every one who behaves as if he were superior to others, we can suspect a feeling of inferiority which calls for very special efforts of concealment. It is as if a man feared that he was too small and walked on tiptoe to make himself seem larger.

  Sometimes we can see this very behavior if two children are comparing their height. The one who is afraid that he is smaller will stretch up and hold himself very tensely; he will try to seem bigger than he is. If we asked such a child, "Do you think you are too small?" we should hardly expect him to acknowledge the fact.

  It does not follow, therefore, that an individual with strong feelings of inferiority will appear to be a submissive, quiet, restrained, inoffensive sort of person. Inferiority feelings can express themselves in a thousand ways. Perhaps I can illustrate this by an anecdote of three children who were taken to the zoo for the first time. As they stood before the lion's cage, one of them shrank behind his mother's skirts and said, "I want to go home." The second child stood where he was, very pale and trembling, and said, "I'm not a bit frightened." The third glared at the lion fiercely and asked his mother, "Shall I spit at it?" All three children really felt inferior, but each ex pressed his feelings in his own way, consonant with his style of life.

  Inferiority feelings are in some degree common to all of us, since we all find ourselves in positions which we wish to improve. If we have kept our courage, we shall set about ridding ourselves of these feelings by the only direct, realistic and satisfactory means — by improving the situation. No human being can bear a feeling of inferiority for long; he will be thrown into a tension which necessitates some kind of action. But suppose an individual is discouraged; suppose he cannot conceive that if he makes realistic efforts he will improve the situation. He will still be unable to bear his feelings of inferiority; he will still struggle to get rid of them; but he will try methods which bring him no farther ahead. His goal is still "to be superior to difficulties," but instead of overcoming obstacles he will try to hypnotize himself, or auto-intoxicate himself, into feeling superior. Meanwhile his feelings of inferiority will accumulate, because the situation which produces them remains unaltered. The provocation is still there. Every step he takes will lead him farther into self-deception, and all his problems will press in upon him with greater and greater urgency. If we looked at his movements without understanding we should think them aimless. They would not impress us as designed to improve the situation. As soon as we see, however, that he is occupied, like everyone else, in struggling for a feeling of adequacy but has given up hope of altering the objective situation, all his movements begin to fall into coherence. If he feels weak, he moves into circumstances where he can feel strong. He does not train to be stronger, to be more adequate; he trains to appear stronger in his own eyes. His efforts to fool himself will meet with only a partial success. If he feels unequal to the problems of occupation, he may attempt to reassure himself of his importance by being a domestic tyrant. In this way he may drug himself; but the real feelings of inferiority will remain. They will be the same old feelings of inferiority provoked by the same old situation. They will be the lasting under current of his psychic life. In such a case we may truly speak of an inferiority complex.

  It is time now to give a definition of the inferiority complex. The inferiority complex appears before a problem for which an individual is not properly adapted or equipped, and expresses his conviction that he is unable to solve it. From this definition we can see that anger can be as much an expression of an inferiority complex as tears or apologies. As inferiority feelings always produce tension, there will always be a compensatory movement towards a feeling of superiority; but it will no longer be directed towards solving the problem. The movement towards superiority will thus be towards the useless side of life. The real problem will be shelved or excluded. The individual will try to restrict his field of action and will be more occupied in avoiding defeat than in pressing forward to success. He will give the picture of hesitating, of being at a standstill, or even of retreating, before his difficulties.

  Such an attitude can be seen very simply in cases of agoraphobia. This symptom is the expression of conviction, "I must not go too far. I must keep myself to familiar circumstances. Life is full of dangers and I must avoid encountering them." Where this attitude is carried out consistently, the individual will keep himself to one room, or will retire to bed and stay there. The most thoroughgoing expression of a retreat before difficulties is suicide. Here the individual gives up before all the problems of life, expresses his conviction that he can do nothing to better his situation. The striving for superiority in suicide can be understood when we realize that suicide is always a reproach or a revenge. With every suicide, we can always find someone at whole door he is laying the responsibility for his death. It is as if the suicide said, "I was the tenderest and most sensitive of all people, and you treated me with the utmost brutality."

&nb
sp; To some degree or other, every neurotic restricts his field of action, his contacts with the whole situation. He tries to keep at a distance the three real confronting problems of life and confines himself to circumstances in which he feels able to dominate. In this way he builds for himself a narrow stable, closes the door and spends his life away from the wind, the sunlight and the fresh air. Whether he dominates by bullying or by whining will depend on his training: he will choose the device which he has tested best and found most effective for his purposes. Sometimes, if he is dissatisfied with one method, he will try the other. In either case the goal is the same — to gain a feeling of superiority without working to improve the situation. The discouraged child which finds that it can tyrannize best by tears will be a cry-baby; and a direct line of development leads from the cry-baby to the adult melancholiac. Tears and complaints — the means which I have called " water power "— can be an extremely capable weapon for disturbing cooperation and reducing others to a condition of slavery. With such people, as with those who suffer from shyness, embarrassment and feelings of guilt, we should find the inferiority complex on the surface; they would readily admit their weakness and their inability to look after themselves. What they would hide from view would be their heightened goal of supremacy, their desire to be the first at all costs. A child given to boasting, on the other hand, displays its superiority complex at first view; if we examined its behavior rather than its words, we should soon discover the unadmitted feelings of inferiority.

  The so-called Oedipus Complex is in reality nothing more than a special instance of the "narrow stable " of the neurotic. If an individual is afraid to meet the problem of love in the world at large, he will not succeed in ridding himself of this problem. If he confines his field of action to the family circle, it will not surprise us to find that his sexual strivings also are elaborated within these limits. From his feeling of insecurity he has never spread his interest outside the few people with whom he is most familiar. He fears that with others he would not be able to dominate in his accustomed way. The victims of the Oedipus Complex are children who were pampered by their mothers, who were trained to believe that their wishes carried with them a right to fulfillment, and who never saw that they could win affection and love by their independent efforts outside the bounds of the home. In adult life they remain tied to their mothers' apron strings. In love they look, not for an equal partner, but for a servant; and the servant of whose support they are surest is their mother. We could probably induce an Oedipus Complex in any child. All we should need is for its mother to spoil it, and refuse to spread its interest to other people, and for its father to be comparatively indifferent or cold.