Ode to Alfred Adler: Equal Worth, Community and the Courage to Decide Anew
A blog post about a thinker who is more relevant today than ever
There are people whose ideas you meet for the first time and immediately think: that is exactly it. For me, that person was Alfred Adler. His view of human beings is warm, clear and generous, and it believes in us. In an age of uncertainty, polarisation and self-optimisation, I find that a gift. That is why I would like to dedicate a small ode to him today.
Who was Alfred Adler?
Alfred Adler was born in 1870 into a Jewish family in Rudolfsheim, near Vienna, and died in Aberdeen in 1937, in the middle of a lecture tour. As a child he suffered from rickets and, at the age of four, survived a serious bout of pneumonia. He knew from his own experience what it means to feel small and weak, and he became a doctor.
After his medical studies he turned to psychology and belonged to Sigmund Freud's circle, not as a pupil but as a colleague. Whereas Freud explained mental suffering chiefly in terms of drives and experiences from the past, Adler asked about goals, feelings of inferiority and belonging. He met people at eye level and gave up the couch in therapy; instead, he set out two chairs. In 1911 their paths parted, and Adler founded Individual Psychology. The name does not mean egocentrism. It refers to the indivisible nature of the human being (Latin individuum): we are whole people, who cannot be broken down into drives, psychic agencies and separate parts.
Adler did not remain in the realm of theory. As part of the Vienna school reform, he and his colleagues opened around thirty child guidance clinics to give parents, teachers and children practical support. From 1927 he taught in the United States as a visiting professor. In 1934 his clinics were closed, and in view of the threatening situation in Europe, including for people of Jewish origin, he moved his base there. The political violence of the 1930s also hit Individual Psychology hard. His ideas still resonate today in education, counselling, therapy and coaching.
Equal worth: an idea that never goes out of fashion
What first draws me to Adler is his view of equal worth. For him, every human being was fundamentally of equal worth, regardless of background, achievement, status or gender. Differences exist, of course, but they do not amount to a ranking of human beings.
That was radical for his time, especially with regard to women. It was taken for granted then that women were inferior to men. Adler disagreed: the myth that everything feminine is lesser discourages women and men alike. His surroundings fit this picture. He met his wife, Raissa Epstein, a politically engaged, free-spirited Russian, in a socialist student group, and their daughter Alexandra became one of the first women neurologists.
Equal worth, incidentally, does not mean uniformity for Adler, but meeting at eye level. In education, for instance, it means that children are not small subordinates to be drilled, but people to be taken seriously and accompanied.
Self and community: not opposites
Another idea I value in Adler is his concept of community feeling (Gemeinschaftsgefühl, often translated as "social interest"). By this he meant a sense of connection with other people and an interest in their well-being. For Adler it was central to mental health. It also includes the wish to work together with others for the good of all. Adler lived this himself: in his clinics, doctors and educators worked side by side. Collaboration, in particular, is too often neglected today.
What is special here is that it is not a case of either/or. I do not have to choose between myself and others. Those who experience themselves as part of a greater whole can, for that very reason, be courageously themselves. And those who only revolve around themselves are rarely happy. Adler saw the great tasks of life (work, love, community) as tasks that we solve together.
In a time when isolation, comparison and digital self-presentation often set the tone, this seems to me a welcome counter-voice.
Not determined: you can decide anew
Freud assumed psychic determinism: nothing in mental life happens by chance, and all experience and action trace back to unconscious inner forces that often take shape in early childhood. Adler explicitly disagreed: neither heredity nor environment determines how a person relates to life. Heredity gives him only abilities, and the environment only impressions, and both play a part at most as a probability. What matters is the meaning he gives to his experiences, for with that meaning, and with his creative power, he shapes his style of life. That is why Adler asked less "Where does this come from?" than "To what end, with what goal?", without ever ignoring the past. In the Adlerian literature this is called soft determinism, or self-determination. For me, it means: we are shaped, but not fixed.
That does not mean everything is easy, or that one only has to try hard enough. It means that we remain capable of acting, at any time. We may decide anew today. We may question an old conviction that keeps us small. We may begin, even if we are starting late. For me, there is deep dignity and great hope in that.
Encouragement as an attitude
And then there is encouragement, perhaps the heart of Adler's practical work. He saw discouragement as the root of many problems, in children and adults alike. Those who have lost heart withdraw, become aggressive or try to rise above others. The remedy is encouragement: placing trust in people, noticing progress, seeing mistakes as chances to learn.
To encourage is to say: I believe in you. You belong. You are allowed to make mistakes. How differently schools, families, teams and debates would look if that were our basic attitude.
Adler's ideas have been developed further: his student Rudolf Dreikurs coined "the courage to be imperfect", the courage to make mistakes without calling one's own worth into question, and Theo Schoenaker later made encouragement the focus of his work. I am grateful to be able to work in this tradition.
Why Adler today?
When I look around, I see a great deal of pressure to perform, division and feelings of powerlessness. Adler invites us to take a different view:
Equal worth instead of hierarchy and devaluation
Connection instead of isolation
Agency instead of resignation to fate
Encouragement instead of shaming
Much of this is supported by research today:
Belonging is a basic need. In 1995, Baumeister and Leary reviewed the literature and found that the need for stable relationships is a fundamental motivation, and that a lack of attachments goes hand in hand with disadvantages for health and well-being. An analysis of 148 studies involving more than 300,000 people found a clear association between social relationships and longevity: people with stronger social relationships were less likely to die during the follow-up period (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2010). Belonging is now a well-researched field.
Hardship is not destiny. This fits with Adler's soft determinism: the resilience researcher George Bonanno found that after potentially traumatic events, half of people or more remain resilient.
Of course, Adler's work is not beyond criticism. Some terms are outdated today, and research has not been able to confirm some of it (his theories on birth order, for instance). But his basic outlook has lost none of its strength, quite the opposite.
Thank you, Alfred Adler, for a view of humanity that gives us courage.
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