AAllffrreedd AAddlleerr IInnssttiittuuttee ooff NNoorrtthhwweesstteerrnn WWaasshhiinnggttoonn 2565 Mayflower Lane Bellingham, WA 98226 (360) 647-5670 E-mail: [email protected] Web Site: www;Adlerian.us This digital version of Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind, by Alfred Adler, was created by The Classical Adlerian Translation Project.. The original book was scanned, optically converted to a Word file, edited, re-formatted for wider margins and readability, exported to a PDF format, bookmarked, and enabled for commenting in Adobe Reader. It is protected by copyright and may not be shared, distributed, altered, or reproduced without the expressed consent of Dr. Stein. © 2011 by Henry T. Stein, Ph.D. For information about Classical Adlerian Psychology, go to www.Adlerian.us. For information about our Subscription Site, go to www.Adlerian.us/subscription.htm. For information about A Clinician's Guide to The Collected Clinical Works of Alfred Adler, go to www.Adlerian.us/cwaa-guide.htm. For information about Distance Training in Classical Adlerian Depth Psychotherapy, go to www.Adlerian.us/dist-tra.htm. Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind by Alfred Adler Translated by John Linton, M.A. and Richards Vaughn English translation ublished in 1938 by Faber and Faber Ltd. 24 Russel Square London Reprinted in 1964 by Capricorn Books New York Originally published in German in 1933 as Der Sinn des Lebens (The Meaning of Life) By Passer Vienna New edition edited by Colin Brett Published in 2009 as Social Interest: Adler's Key to the Meaning of Life Oneworld Publications London 2 Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind “Man knows more than he understands.” Alfred Adler 3 Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind CONTENTS Preface I. The Conception of Oneself and the World II. The Psychological Approach to the Investigation of the Style of Life III. The Tasks of Life IV. The Problem of Body and Soul V. Bodily Form, Movement, and Character VI. The inferiority Complex VII. The Superiority Complex VIII. Types of Failures IX. The Unreal World of the Pampered X. What Really is a Neurosis? XI. Sexual Perversions XII. Earliest Recollections in Childhood XIII. Socially Obstructive Situations in Childhood and Their Removal XIV. Day-Dreams and Night Dreams XV. The Meaning of Life XVI. Addendum: Consultant and Patient XVII. Questionnaire for Individual Psychologists 4 Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind PREFACE In the course of my life as consultant physician in cases of mental illnesses and in clinics, as a psychologist and teacher in schools and in families, I have had constant opportunity of surveying a vast amount of human material. I made it strictly my business never to make any statement I could not illustrate and prove from my own experience. It is not surprising that in doing this I came occasionally into conflict with the preconceived ideas of other men who in many cases could only study our human lot much less intensively. When this happened I endeavored to examine dispassionately the essential arguments of other investigators. I could do this the more easily since I believe I am not bound by any strict rule or prepossession, but rather subscribe to the maxim: Everything can be something else as well. The uniqueness of the individual cannot be expressed in a short formula, and general rules-even those laid down by Individual Psychology, which I have created -should be nothing more than an aid to a preliminary illumination of a field of vision on which the single individual can be found-or missed. The value thus assigned to rules-the stronger emphasis laid on flexibility and on empathy with shades of difference-has every time strengthened my conviction with regard to the free creative power of the individual in his earliest childhood, and his restricted power in later life, when the child has already adopted a fixed law of movement for his life. According to this view, which allows the child free scope for his struggle for perfection, fulfillment, mastery, or evolution, one can look upon the influences of environment and upbringing as the materials with which the child in play constructs his style of life. And still another conviction was forced upon me. The construction of the child's style of life has to be rightly carried out sub specie aeternitatis, if it is to stand the tests life imposes without suffering any set-backs. The child is constantly confronted afresh with ever- varying problems that cannot be solved either by trained (conditioned) reflexes or by innate psychical capacities. It would be a most hazardous venture to expose a child equipped only with trained reflexes or with innate capacities to the tests of a world that is continually raising new problems. There would always be waiting in reserve the most difficult problem to be solved by the unresting, creative spirit which is definitely impelled to follow the path of the child's style of life. Everything that has a name in the various schools of psychology takes the same course- instincts, impulses, feeling, thinking, action, the attitude to pleasure and pain, and finally self-love and social feeling. The style of life takes 5 Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind command of all expressive forms-the whole rules the parts. If an error is present it is found in the law of movement, in the final goal of the style of life and not in any partial expression of it. A third fact this investigation has impressed upon me: every semblance of causality in the psychical life is due to the tendency of many psychologists to present their dogmas disguised in mechanistic or physical similes. At one time they use as a comparison a pump-handle moving up and down, at another a magnet with polar termini, at another a sadly harassed animal struggling for the satisfaction of its elementary needs. It is plain that from a standpoint like this few of the fundamental varieties shown by man's psychical life can be observed. Since physical science has taken the ground of causality from under the feet of psychologists and in place of it speaks in favor of a statistical probability in the issue of events, then surely the attacks on Individual Psychology for its denial of causality in psychical events need no longer be taken seriously. It may possibly be clear even to the layman that the million- fold variations of faulty actions can be 'understood' as faulty actions, but cannot be comprehended causally. When we now rightly leave the ground of absolute certitude, on which so many psychologists bustle about, there remains for us only one single standard by which we can form an estimate of a human being-his movement when confronted with the unavoidable problems of humanity. Three problems are irrevocably set before every individual. These are-the attitude taken up towards our fellow men, vocation, and love. All three are linked with one another by the first; they are not casual questions; they are inevitable. They arise from the relationship of man to human society, to the cosmic factors, and to the other sex. Their solution decides the destiny and the welfare of humanity. Man is a part of the whole. His value, too, depends on his individual solution of these problems. They can be regarded as a mathematical task that has to be undertaken. The worse the failure, the more numerous are the complications that threaten the possessor of a faulty style of life. These complications seem to be absent only so long as the reliability of his social feeling is not put to the proof. The exogenous factor-the nearness of the task that demands co- operation and fellowship-is always the cause of the symptoms that give evidence of the mistake; these are difficulty of upbringing, neurosis and psycho-neurosis, suicide, crime, addiction to drugs, and sexual perversions. If the maladjustment to social life is thus unmasked, then the question arises-and this is not merely an academic question but one of vital importance for the cure -how and when has the growth of social 6 Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind feeling been drained of its strength? In our search for events that v~ill provide an adequate explanation we happen on the period of earliest childhood and on situations which, as experience shows, are able to effect a hindrance to the proper development. But the discovery of this hindrance is always accompanied by the child's faulty response to it. And on a closer examination of the circumstances that come to light it is seen that at one time a legitimate interference has received a faulty response, at another time a mistaken interference has received a wrong response, and at a third time-though this is far less frequent-a mistaken interference has received a correct response. It is also seen that further steps were taken in this direction, which always has conquest for its goal, without the opposing influences having led to the abandonment of the path that has once been chosen. Accordingly education, however widely one may fix its boundaries, means not only allowing favorable influences to have their effect, but also ascertaining exactly what the creative power of the child has formed out of them, in order afterwards to smooth the path to improvement in the case of faulty formation. This better way is found in every case to be the increase of co-operation and of interest in other persons. Once the child has found his law of movement, in which there must be noted the rhythm, the temperament, the activity, and above all the degree of social feeling-phenomena that can often be recognized even in the second year and without fail in the fifth-then all his other capacities with their particular trends are also linked with these to this law of movement. This work will deal chiefly with the apperception connected with this law of movement-the way in which man looks at himself and the external world. In other words we shall deal with the conception which the child, and later, on the same lines, the adult, has acquired of himself and the world. Further, this meaning cannot be gathered from the words and thoughts of the person under examination. These are all far too strongly under the spell of the law of movement, which aims at conquest, and therefore even in the case of self- condemnation still casts longing glances towards the heights. Of greater importance is the fact that life in its wholeness, named concretely by me, 'style of life', is built up by the child at a time when he has neither language nor ideas adequate to give it expression. If he develops further in his intelligence he does so in a movement that has never been comprehended in words and is therefore not open to the assaults of criticism; it is even withdrawn from the criticism of experience. There can be no question here of anything like a repressed unconscious; it is rather a question of something not understood, of something withheld 7 Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind from the understanding. But man speaks to the adept with his style of living and with his reaction to the problems of life, which demand social feeling for their solution. So far then as man's meaning about himself and about the external world is concerned, this can be best discovered from the significance he finds in life and from the significance he gives to his own life. It is obvious that here possible discord with an ideal social feeling, with social life, co-operation, and the sense of fellowship can be distinctly heard. We are now prepared to understand how important it is to get to know something of the meaning of life and also to discover the conceptions different people have of this meaning. If there exists, at least to some extent, a reliable knowledge of that meaning of life which lies beyond the scope of our own experience, then it is clear that this puts those persons in the wrong who flagrantly contradict it. As will be seen, the author is modest enough to endeavor to obtain at the start a partial success which seems to him to be borne out by his experiences. He undertakes this task all the more willingly since he cherishes the hope that with a somewhat fuller knowledge of the meaning of life, not only will a scientific program be matured for further investigation along the lines he has laid down, but also that with growing knowledge there will be a notable increase in the number of those who can be won over to accept this meaning of life by a better understanding of it. 8 Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind CHAPTER I THE CONCEPTION OF ONESELF AND THE WORLD For me there can be no doubt that every individual conducts himself in life as if he had a definite idea of his power and his capacities, and also as though from the very beginning he had a clear conception of the difficulty or feasibility of his action in any given case. In a word, I am convinced that a person's behavior springs from his idea. We should not be surprised at this, because our senses do not receive actual facts, but merely a subjective image of them-a reflection of the external world. Omnia ad opinionem suspensa sunt. This saying of Seneca's should not be forgotten in psychological investigations. How we interpret the great and important facts of existence depends upon our style of life. Only at the point where we come directly up against facts that reveal a contradiction to our interpretation are we inclined in our immediate experience to correct our view of them in minor details, and allow the law of causality to influence us without changing our conception of life. As a matter of fact, it has the same effect on me whether a poisonous snake is actually approaching my foot or whether I merely believe that it is a poisonous snake. The spoiled child shows entirely the same anxiety whether he is afraid of burglars as soon as his mother leaves him or whether there are really burglars in the house. In either case he keeps to his opinion that he cannot exist without his mother, even when the supposition that has roused his anxiety has been proved to be wrong. The man who suffers from agoraphobia and avoids the street because he feels and believes that the ground is swaying beneath his feet, could not behave in any other way if, during his periods of health, the ground beneath his feet were actually swaying. The burglar who shuns useful work because he mistakenly finds burgling easier owing to his being unprepared for co-operation, can show the same disinclination for work when it would really be harder than housebreaking. A suicide finds death preferable to a life which he assumes is hopeless. He could act in the same way if his life were really hopeless. The drug-addict obtains from his poison a relief which he values more highly than the honorable solution of his life's problems. He could act in the same way if this were really valid for him. The homosexual man is afraid of women and finds them unattractive, while men, whose conquest seems to him to be a triumph, allure him. All these act at times according to a belief which, if it were correct, would make their behavior objectively right. 9 Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind Take the following case: a barrister of thirty-six has lost all interest in his work. He is unsuccessful and attributes this to the fact that he does not make a good impression on the few clients who come to consult him. He always found great difficulty as well in mixing with other people, and, especially in the company of girls, he was always extremely shy. A marriage, into which he entered with great reluctance, indeed with aversion, ended a year later in a divorce. He now lives quite withdrawn from the world in the house of his parents, who have for the most part to provide for him. He is an only child and he was spoiled by his mother to an incredible extent. She was always with him. She succeeded in convincing both the child and his father that he would one day become a very outstanding man. The boy grew up with this expectation, and his brilliant success at school seemed to confirm it. As commonly happens with most spoiled children, who can deny themselves nothing, childish masturbation gained a harmful mastery over him and soon made him the laughing-stock of the girls in the school, who had discovered his secret misdemeanor. He withdrew from them entirely. In his isolation he abandoned himself to the imagination of achieving the most glorious triumphs in love and marriage; but he felt himself attracted only to his mother, whom he completely dominated, and with whom for a considerable time he connected his sexual fantasies. It is also obvious enough from this case that this so-called Oedipus complex is not a 'fundamental fact', but is simply a vicious unnatural result of maternal over-indulgence. This comes more clearly into view when the boy or the youth in his inordinate vanity sees himself betrayed by girls and has not developed sufficient social interest to be able to mix with other people. Shortly before finishing his studies, when faced with the question of gaining an independent livelihood, the patient was seized with melancholia, so that now once again he beat a retreat. Like all pampered children he was timid as a child and drew back from strangers. Later the same thing happened with his comradeship in the case both of men and women. In the same way he drew back from his career, and this situation, only slightly modified, persists up to the present. I content myself with this statement, omitting the other facts that are in accordance with it-the 'reasons', the excuses, and the other pathological symptoms with which he 'secured' his retreat. One thing is clear: this man never altered throughout his whole life. He always wanted to be first and invariably drew back whenever he ·vas uncertain of success. His idea of life-hidden from him, but conjectured by us-can be expressed in this form: 'Since the world withholds my triumph from 10