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| Form of neurotic aggression that involves blaming other people for one’s shortcomings and seeking revenge against those people. |
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| As a safeguarding strategy, aggression can take three forms: depreciation, accusation, and self-accusation. |
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| Person exhibiting the mistaken lifestyle of avoiding the attempt to solve life’s problems, thereby escaping possible defeat. Such a person lacks adequate social interest. |
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| One of the topics that Adler studied in order to understand personality. He believed that different birth orders created different situations to which children must adjust and that his adjustment may have an influence on personality development. |
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| Making up for weakness, such as organ inferiority, by emphasizing functions that substitute for the weakness. |
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| Free element of the personality that allows the person to choose between alternative fictional goals and lifestyles. It is the differential exercise of this creative power that is mainly responsible for individual differences. |
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| Neurotic safeguarding strategy whereby one’s accomplishments are overvalued and the accomplishments of others are undervalued. Depreciation can take the form of idealization, whereby standards used to judge people are so high that no real person could live up to them and is this depreciated. Another form of depreciation is solicitude, whereby neurotics act as if other people could not get along without them. |
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Safeguarding strategy used by neurotics that involves creating barriers between themselves and their problems in life.
According to Adler, distancing can take the forms of moving backward or the use of childhood behavior in order to gain attention and control; standing still or the avoidance of failure by not attempting to so anything; hesitating or becoming involved in diversions until it is too late to confront a problem; constructing obstacles or the creation of minor obstacles so that they can be overcome, thereby increasing the neurotic’s false feeling of worth; experiencing anxiety is caused by the neurotic’s inability to solve life’s problems; the greater the ineptitude, the greater the anxiety and therefore, the greater the need for distancing; and using the exclusion tendency or the neurotics’ tendency to confine their lives to the few areas in which they can dominate. |
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Adler believed that the primary purpose of dreams was to create emotions that could be used by dreamers to support their mistaken lifestyles.
Dreams, then, were analyzed to learn about the lifestyles of the dreamers. |
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| Safeguarding strategy whereby neurotics use their symptoms as excuses for their shortcomings. |
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Feelings that one has of being inferior, whether or not these feelings are justified by real circumstances.
Such feelings, according to Adler, can lead either to positive accomplishments or to an inferiority complex. |
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Fictional future goal to which a person aspires.
This goal is the end to which the person is aspiring, and his or her lifestyle is the means to that end. |
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Fictional future goal to which a person aspires.
This goal is the end to which the person is aspiring, and his or her lifestyle is the means to that end. |
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This child is the focus of attention until the birth of a sibling “dethrones” him or her.
The loss felt by the first-born child when the second child is born often creates bitterness that causes problems later in life.
Adler considered this the most troublesome birth position. |
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A person’s earliest recollections.
Such recollections provide the basis for a person’s worldview, fictional final goal, and lifestyle.
Adler believed that as one’s personality changes so do first memories. |
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| fraternal birth order defect (FBO) |
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| The more older, biologically related brothers a male child has, the more likely he is to be homosexual |
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Adler replaced his earlier contention that people seek power to overcome feelings of inferiority with the contention that they aspire to become superior or perfect.
Adler referred to the latter contention as the fundamental fact of life.
Adler’s final position was that healthy persons aspire toward social rather than individual perfection. |
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| getting-leaning type person |
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Person exhibiting the mistaken lifestyle that expects everything to be given to him or her by others.
Such a person lacks adequate social interest. |
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Adler’s term to describe his theory.
The term individual was used to stress his belief that each person is an integrated whole striving to attain future goals and attempting to find meaning in life while working harmoniously with others. |
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| Psychological condition that exists when a person is overwhelmed by feelings of inferiority to the point at which nothing can be accomplished. |
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| The primary means by which one attempts to attain his or her self-created or fictional goals in life. |
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Attempting to become more powerful by being more masculine, and thereby less feminine.
According to Adler’s earlier theorizing, both men and women attempt to gain power by becoming more like the cultural ideal of a man. |
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Any lifestyle that is not aimed at socially useful goals.
In other words, any lifestyle that minimizes social interest. |
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| Condition that causes the child to feel worthless and angry and to be distrustful of everyone. |
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This child is like the first-born child who was never dethroned.
Only children, according to Adler, are often sweet, affectionate, and charming in order to appeal to others.
Adler did not consider this birth position as dangerous as the first-born’s position. |
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Condition that exists when some organ of the body does not develop normally.
Such a condition can stimulate compensation or overcompensation, which is healthy, or can result in an inferiority complex, which is unhealthy. |
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Process in which, through considerable effort, converts a previous weakness into a strength.
An example is when a frail child works hard to become an athlete. |
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| ruling-dominant type person |
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Person exhibiting the mistaken lifestyle that dominates and rules people.
Such a person lacks social interest. |
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| Mechanisms neurotics use to preserve what little self-esteem and illusions of superiority a mistaken lifestyle can provide. |
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This child is very ambitious because he or she is constantly attempting to catch up and surpass the older sibling.
Of all the birth orders, Adler believed that the second-born was the best. |
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| Form of neurotic aggression that involves wallowing in self-torture and guilt, the ultimate purpose of which is to hurt other people. |
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| Innate potential to live in harmony and friendship with others and to aspire to the development of a perfect society. |
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| socially useful type person |
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Person exhibiting a lifestyle containing a healthy amount of social interest.
Such a lifestyle is not “mistaken” |
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| Conditions that cause a child to believe that it is the responsibility of others to satisfy his or her needs. |
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o What Adler called the “Fundamental fact of life”
According to Adler’s final theoretical position, it is not the search for the power necessary to overcome feelings of inferiority that motivates humans; rather, it is the constant search for perfection or superiority.
However, Adler stressed the perfection of society rather than individual perfection. |
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Psychological condition that exists when a person concentrates too much on his or her own need to succeed while ignoring the needs of others.
Such a person tends to be vain, domineering, and arrogant. |
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According to Adler, the second-worst position after the first-born.
This child is often spoiled and therefore loses courage to succeed by his or her own efforts. |
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