The theoretical development of Alfred Adler's concept of the inferiority feeling

Abstract

This article shows the historic development of Alfred Adler's concept of inferiority feeling. The findings are the result of the detailed analysis of Adler's relevant articles and the analysis of the protocols of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. The origins of the inferiority theory had its public premiere in 1907 in Adler's book "A Study of Organ Inferiority and Its Psychical Compensation" and experienced its formal introduction in 1910 with the first use of the term “inferiority feeling” in Adler's essay "On Suicide: With Particular Reference to Suicide Among Young Students". The culmination of this theory development is the presentation of the completed doctrine of inferiority in Adler's main work "The nervous character: outline of comparative individual psychology and psychotherapy" in 1912. The different stages of this genesis are presented in this article.