The Neurotic Constitution. Outlines of a Comparative Individualistic Psychology and Psychotherapy

Abstract

THE views of Dr. Adler, though expressed at length, lose in definition by being seen through the rather irregularly refracting medium of the present English translation. To the author, the various traits of the neurotic constitution appear as formulations of what he terms the “masculine protest.” The causal factor in this protest, which can be made either by the male or the female, is a feeling of inferiority. A continual attempt is made by the neurotic to dispel this feeling by ordering every detail of his life so that he may find that subjective security of which the feeling of inferiority has robbed him. This compensatory product, this aggressive endeavour at every point to achieve the “maximation of his ego,” foredoomed to failure because of its false direction, exhibits itself in its protean forms as the psychoneurosis or psychosis.

The Neurotic Constitution. Outlines of a Comparative Individualistic Psychology and Psychotherapy.

By Dr. A. Adler. Translated by Dr. B. Glueck and Dr. J. E. Lind. Pp. xxiii + 456. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd., 1918.) Price 16s. net.