Individual Psychology: A Psychology of Values

(From the writings of Alfred Adler)

"Individual Psychology stands firmly on the ground of evolution and in the light of evolution regards all human striving as a struggle for perfection. The craving for life, material and spiritual, is irrevocably bound up with this struggle. So far, therefore, as our knowledge goes, every psychical expressive form presents itself as a movement that leads from a minus to a plus situation. Each individual adopts for himself at the beginning of his life, a law of movement, with comparative freedom to utilize for this his innate capacities and defects, as well as the first impressions of his environment. This law of movement is for each individual different in tempo, rhythm, and direction. The individual, perpetually comparing himself with the unattainable ideal of perfection, is always possessed and spurred on by a feeling of inferiority. We may deduce from this that every human law of movement is faulty when regarded sub specie aeternitatis [under the aspect of eternity], and seen from an imagined standpoint of absolute correctness.
"Each cultural epoch forms this ideal for itself from its wealth of ideas and emotions. Thus in our day it is always to the past alone that we turn to find in the setting-up of this ideal the transient level of man's mental power, and we have the right to admire most profoundly this power that for countless ages has conceived a reliable ideal of human social life. Surely the commands, 'Thou shalt not kill' and 'Love thy neighbour' can hardly ever disappear from knowledge and feeling as the supreme court of appeal. These and other norms of human social life, which are undoubtedly the products of evolution and are as native to humanity as breathing and the upright gait, can be embodied in the conception of an ideal human community, regarded here as the impulse and the goal of evolution. They supply Individual Psychology with the plumb-line . . . ['Give me where I can stand,' the opening words of Archimedes' 'Give me a fixed point and I shall move the earth.'] by which alone the right and wrong of all the other goals and modes of movement opposed to evolution are to be valued. It is at this point that Individual Psychology becomes a 'psychology of values', just as medical science, the promoter of evolution by its researches and discoveries, is a 'science of values'(pp. 37-38)."

Adler, Alfred (1933). Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind. London: Faber & Faber, Ltd.

Replies:

There are no replies to this message.

| Behavior OnLine Home Page | Disclaimer |

Copyright © 1996-2004 Behavior OnLine, Inc. All rights reserved.