Alfred Adler

He met Raissa Epstein, a Russian social activist, while studying in Vienna. The couple got married in 1897. They were blessed with four children. His daughter Alexandra was a psychiatrist and social activist while another daughter Valentine, was a writer and activist.

While on a visit to the University of Aberdeen in Scotland in 1937, he suffered a sudden heart attack and died. He was 67.

The Adler School of Professional Psychology, Chicago, was founded in 1952 to further the pioneering work of the great psychologist.

Alfred Adler was one of the seven children born to a Jewish grain merchant and his wife.

He was afflicted by rickets as a small child and could not walk until he was four. He suffered from a bout of pneumonia when he was five. These childhood illnesses motivated him to become a physician.

He received his primary education from classical secondary school. He studied medicine at the University of Vienna Medical School and earned his degree in 1895. During his college days he became involved with a group of socialists. Career

Adler began his career as an ophthalmologist, but soon shifted to general medicine. He had been interested in socialism from a young age and wrote articles for socialist newspapers.

He received an invitation from the renowned psychiatrist Sigmund Freud in 1902 to join an informal group ‘Wednesday Society’, the members of which discussed the various aspects of psychoanalysis.

He founded the Adlerian School of Individual Psychology. Initially called ‘Free Psychoanalysis’, his works adopted a holistic approach to the study of human psychology and personality.

He defined a set of fictive goals that are largely unconscious. He believed that human psychology is psychodynamic and can be explained teleologically. He was of the view that the conscious and the unconscious work in union with each other to achieve the fictive goals.

He considered inferiority complex or the feeling of inferiority a major factor in determining the development of an individual’s personality. He identified inferiority complex as one of the main factors that lead to behavioral problems in children.

Sigmund Freud and he were colleagues - they did not have a mentor-prot�g� relation as mentioned in some sources.

A social idealist, he was a strong supporter of Marxism during his early years.

He believed that a person’s birth order had an influence in shaping his personality.