Background
Alfred Adler (1870–1937) was an Austrian psychiatrist and recognized as one of the fathers of modern psychotherapy. He was born in Vienna in 1870 and decided at an early age that he wanted to be a doctor in order to “fight death.” He was the second child in a large family and suffered from numerous illnesses as a child. He studied medicine at the University of Vienna and preferred not to treat a client’s symptoms in isolation, but rather considered the whole person, including their social setting.
In 1902, Adler was asked to join a weekly psychoanalytic discussion circle and became an active member in the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society; other notable members included Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung. However, after nine years, he and about a dozen other members split from the society over theoretical differences. He went on to form the Society of Individual Psychology, which emphasized the role of goals and motivation in people’s behaviors. Adler developed his theory of Indi...
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Bibliography
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Smothers, M.K. (2010). Adler, Alfred. In: Leeming, D.A., Madden, K., Marlan, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-71802-6_7
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