Alfred Adler was one of the first supporters of Sigmund Freud's theories of psychoanalysis in Vienna in the eraly-20th Century, although the two psychiatrists had a particularly harsh falling out in 1911 and never reconciled. Adler's basic theories were so distinctive from Freud's that any attempt to combine them would have been impossible, given that he denied the existence of the id, ego and superego. In general, Adler minimized the

" (Adler, Understanding Human Nature, pp. 139, 140) In Adler's view, society can be a source of strength and comfort -- but also provoke neurosis when the individual feels helpless and inferior, as a result of unresolved issues regarding agency, issues begun in childhood. Adler was interested in overcoming the inferiority complex through positive social interaction. "There are the four main types of people, three out of four are negative. The

Alfred Adler began his career as a psychoanalyst as part of Freud's inner circle. However, he came to the conclusion that Freud was incorrect to place the source of all personal conflict in our sexual development. (Weider, 1995) So eventually he broke from Freud's philosophy and formed his own theory of personality development. His approach emphasizes the person as a social individual rather than a sexual individual. He put more

While there is a lot of controversy surrounding Bandura's theories, the psychologist claims that people should be more interested in the social utility of his theories rather than wasting their time challenging their exactness (Bandura). The debates relating to Bandura's theories can be associated to the divergences between groups of behavioral theorists and groups of humanistic and cognitive theorists. The former support the belief that the individual is mainly influenced

This bleak outlook, Adler suggests, is the personality response to a sense of inequality within the family. Moving on to a consideration of the youngest child in a family of three, Adler contends that though this child never knows what it is to be the only focal point of his or her parent's affections, he or she will come to experience parental attention and affection which is never displaced by

147). Therefore, the therapist and counselor should be aware of the subjective view or interpretation of reality of the patient. This has important implications in many fields; for example, in education. Using Adler's theory, "…apparent under-achievement in school is to be understood more in terms of the student subjective interpretations than in terms of standardized test results" (Dunn, 1971, p. 8). This also relates to Adler's emphasis on the uniqueness of