Alfred Alder

Alfred Adler (1870–1937) was an Austrian physician and psychologist, best known as the founder of Individual Psychology. Initially associated with Freud, he later broke away to develop a distinctly different view of the human psyche, focused not on unconscious drives but on the meaning individuals give to their lives. Adler saw human beings as goal-oriented, driven by a striving for self-overcoming and guided by what he called social interest or community feeling. His key concepts—feelings of inferiority, compensation, lifestyle, and social interest—describe how individuals create inner coherence in response to real or perceived limitations. His work emphasizes personal responsibility, creative agency, and the social embeddedness of the self, presenting psychology as both a framework for understanding human behavior and a means of conscious personal transformation.