The Psychology Book (33 page)

PSYCHOTHERAPY 101

See also:
Karen Horney 110 ■ Eric Fromm 124–29 ■ Abraham Maslow 138–39 ■

Rollo May 141 ■ Albert Ellis 142–45

because they are constantly

surrounded by stronger, more

powerful people with greater

abilities. A child generally seeks

to emulate and achieve the abilities

of its elders, motivated by the

surrounding forces that propel him

toward his own development and

accomplishments.

Children and adults with a

healthy and balanced personality

Alfred Adler

gain confidence each time they

realize that they are capable of

After coming close to death

from pneumonia at the age of

meeting external goals. Feelings of

five, Alfred Adler expressed a

inferiority dissipate until the next

wish to become a physician.

challenge presents itself and is

Growing up in Vienna, he

overcome; this process of psychic

went on to study medicine,

A paralympic athlete
may be driven

growth is continual. However, an

branching into ophthalmology

by a powerful desire to overcome her

individual with a physical inferiority

before finally settling with

disabilities and reach greater levels of

may develop more generalized

psychology. In 1897, he married

physical achievement. Adler described

feelings of inferiority—leading to

Raissa Epstein, a Russian

this trait as “compensation.”

an unbalanced personality and

intellectual and social activist,

what Adler termed an “inferiority

and they had four children.

began early in his career, when

complex,” where the feelings of

Adler was one of the original

he worked with patients who had

inferiority are never relieved.

members of the Freudian-

physical disabilities. Looking at

Adler also recognized the

based Vienna Psychoanalytical

the effects that disability had on

equally unbalanced “superiority

Society and the first to depart

achievement and sense of self, he

complex,” manifested in a constant

from it, asserting that

individuals are affected by

found huge differences between

need to strive toward goals. When

social factors as well as the

his patients. Some people with

attained, these goals do not instil

unconscious drives that Freud

disabilities were able to reach high

confidence in the individual, but

identified. After this split in

levels of athletic success, and Adler

merely prompt him to continually

1911, Adler flourished

noted that in these personalities,

seek further external recognition

professionally, establishing his

the disability served as a strong

and achievements. ■

own school of psychotherapy

motivational force. At the other

and developing many of

extreme, he witnessed patients

psychology’s prominent

who felt defeated by their disability

concepts. He left Austria in

and who made little effort to improve

1932 for the US. He died of a

their situation. Adler realized that

heart attack while lecturing at

the differences came down to how

Aberdeen University, Scotland.

these individuals viewed themselves:

To be human is to

in other words, their self-esteem.

Key works

feel inferior.

Alfred Adler

1912
The Neurotic Character

The inferiority complex

1927
The Practice and Theory

According to Adler, feeling inferior

of Individual Psychology

is a universal human experience

1927
Understanding Human

that is rooted in childhood.

Nature

Children naturally feel inferior

THE COLLECTIVE

UNCONSCIOUS

IS MADE UP OF

CARL JUNG (1875–1961)

ARCHETYPES

104 CARL JUNG

IN CONTEXT

Myths and symbols
are strikingly similar in cultures around

APPROACH

the world and across the centuries.

Psychoanalysis

BEFORE

1899
Sigmund Freud explores

the nature of the unconscious

and dream symbolism in
The

Therefore, they must be a result of the
knowledge and

Interpretation of Dreams
.

experiences we share
as a species.

1903
Pierre Janet suggests

that traumatic incidents

generate emotionally charged

beliefs, which influence an

The memory
of this shared experience is held…

individual’s emotions and

behaviors for many years.

AFTER

1949
Jungian scholar Joseph

Campbell publishes
Hero With

a Thousand Faces,
detailing

…in the form of
archetypes
—

…in the
collective

symbols that act as

archetypal themes in literature

unconscious
,
which is part

organizing forms for

from many different cultures

of each and every person.

behavioral patterns.

throughout history.

1969
British psychologist

John Bowlby states that

human instinct is expressed

as patterned action and

Each of us is born with the innate tendency to use

thought in social exchanges.

these archetypes to
understand the world
.

S
igmund Freud introduced the despite being culturally very

unconscious exists within each of

idea that rather than being

different. They share an uncanny

us, which is not based on any of our

guided by forces outside

commonality in their myths and

own individual experiences—this

ourselves, such as God or fate, we

symbols, and have for thousands of

is the “collective unconscious.”

are motivated and controlled by the

years. He thought that this must be

The commonly found myths and

inner workings of our own minds,

due to something larger than the

symbols are, for Jung, part of this

specifically, the unconscious. He

individual experience of man; the

universally shared collective

claimed that our experiences are

symbols, he decided, must exist as

unconscious. He believed that the

affected by primal drives contained

part of the human psyche.

symbols exist as part of hereditary

in the unconscious. His protégé,

It seemed to Jung that the

memories that are passed on from

the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung,

existence of these shared myths

generation to generation, changing

took this idea further, delving into

proved that part of the human

only slightly in their attributes

the elements that make up the

psyche contains ideas that are held

across different cultures and time

unconscious and its workings.

in a timeless structure, which acts

periods. These inherited memories

Jung was fascinated by the way

as a form of “collective memory.”

emerge within the psyche in the

that societies around the world

Jung introduced the notion that one

language of symbols, which Jung

share certain striking similarities,

distinct and separate part of the

calls “archetypes.”

PSYCHOTHERAPY 105

See also:
Pierre Janet 54–55 ■ Sigmund Freud 92–99 ■ Jaques Lacan 122–23 ■ Steven Pinker 211

and the collective unconscious.

Jung believes that the self has

The ego, he says, represents the

both masculine and feminine

conscious mind or self, while the

parts, and is molded into

personal unconscious contains

becoming fully male or female by

the individual’s own memories,

society as much as biology. When

including those that have been

we become wholly male or female

The personal

suppressed. The collective

we turn our backs on half of our

unconscious rests upon a

unconscious is the part of the

potential, though we can still

deeper layer… I call the

psyche that houses the archetypes.

access this part of the self through

collective unconscious.

an archetype. The Animus exists

Carl Jung

The archetypes

as the masculine component of the

There are many archetypes, and

female personality, and the Anima

though they can blend and mold

as the feminine attributes of the

into each other in different cultures,

male psyche. This is the “other

each of us contains within us the

half,” the half that was taken from

model of each archetype. Since we

us as we grew into a girl or boy.

use these symbolic forms to make

These archetypes help us to

Ancient memories

sense of the world and our

understand the nature of the

Jung believes that the archetypes

experiences, they appear in all

opposite sex, and because they

are layers of inherited memory, and

human forms of expression, such

contain “deposits of all the

they constitute the entirety of the

as art, literature, and drama.