WHAT MAKES US

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 9, 12 January 1938, Page 17

WHAT MAKES US

ADLER'S PSYCHOLOGY

INFERIORITY AND ITS FRUIT

THE SECOND CHILD

When a man, a woman, or a child comes into my room for advice or treatment, I do not ask him questions: I watch his movements, said Dr. Alfred Adler, the famous Viennese psychologist, in an interview given shortly before his death, and reported in the "Winnipeg Free Press." Close your ears. Don't listen to wliat a man says. Watch, how he says it and how he behaves. That is my first lesson to students of life and human beings. " Watch the way a person opens or closes a door. The way he sits down. The way he wears his necktie. The way he eats and drinks. These things tell me more about what he is and what he ought to be than he could tell me in words if he spoke for a month. A person may know much about himself and still not know where he stands in relation to his friends, his family, his neighbours, his surroundings, and his own past and future. Oh that relationship depend his health and happiness. Unless he sees himself clearly in relation to everybody and everything else—to the chairs in my room, for example—he certainly doesn't know who he is and where he is. We all find ourselves lost like that from time to time, when fears attack and problems seem too big for us. Those of us who can pull out by themselves are lucky; the others need help. An American diplomat came to see me not long ago, and, instead of taking the chair I offered him, walked over-to another in a darker part of the room. That meant a great deal to me. ' HE FELT INFERIOR. I do not mean that I instantly judged him guilty of dark deeds, or saw that he was afraid of the light. But his choice of chairs did give me the first clue to what sort of man he was. He wanted the light to be on my face instead of his own in order to put me at a disadvantage—because he felt inferior, not to me in particular, but to the situation in which he found himself. He had come to consult me, yet at the beginning he did not want me to know too much about him. You must have noticed that many business men do the same thing—sit so that the light shines on the faces of people they are talking to—but it does not necessarily show that they are in trouble or that they have feelings of inferiority, They are not always deceiving themselves, but this man was. "He had an inferiority complex," you may say,' Yes; but I should.not have dreamed of telling him so. It would have'beeh like a. physician telling « patient that he had a headache. Since I first used the term "inferiority complex" yearg ago It has become a fashionable catchword. Few of the people who glibly use it have more than a hazy notion of what it means. AH neurotic people have an inferiority complex. It is a result of defeat, or fear of defeat. Often the cause is a long way back, hidden among the dim and distant memories of early childhood. A cruel or stupid parSnt can contribute to it. A mother, for example, who says to her child, "You wait tili your father comes home and he will punish you." DEEF-ROOTED CAUSES. The'terror inspired by such threats may polour a whole life. So may jealousy among brothers and sisters. These are not the only causes of inferiority complex, but they are the deepest and the hardest to discover. It was so with this man. I got him to take another chair nearer to me, and what he told me about his childhood bore out what I had learned from his movements. He was an only child, pamperadNlrom birth. Over and over again throughout his life the childhood habit of dodging the issue and choosing what appeared to be the easiest way had prevented him from facing situations as they arose. Now a crisis had come and he was unable to meet it alone. But the problem was no more difficult than most of us have to solve at some time or other. And when these problems arise we all experience feelings of inferiority which may have deep roots. These feelings are always unbearable. No human being can put up with them for long. We must get nd of them somehow. If we keep up our courage we can get rid of these feelings by improving the situation. . But if we get discouraged and try to dodge the fight we find ourselves inventing excuses and expedients. In the endeavour to escape from inferiority we may 'persuade ourselves that we are superior. When a man shows by his aggressive way of shaking hands with me that he wants me to see what a superior fellow he is, I don't ask him whether he has an inferiority complex; I try to find out what is worrying him. Every neurotic tricks himself in that way. And his every movement is a key to his problem. ' WAS AN ONLY CHILD. The man I have mentioned suffered fiom- the burden of being an only child But every child has his own particular problem. : Were you your parents' first child, second youngest? I can tell you something about yourself without seeing you. If you were a second child you: are a rebel. You saw the elder brother with a start in the race through life, getting privileges and advantages that were denied to yourself. You may have loved your brother dearly, may have worshipped him as a hero, but always underneath there was the wish to emulate him or even to surpass him. This wish may be a stimulant to you throughout life and may carry you on to great success, But if the rebellion was knocked out of you you are scarred inside. Your defeat may explain your behaviour in the face of problems that you now have to meet. Love, for example, and your work and your relations with other men and women. I have talked so much about the second son because I was one myself. My health was not perfect, and I was physically inferior to many of the boys with whom I played—and notably to my elder brother. He was to me one who had been given an unfair start in a race. . I do not mean that there was conscious jealousy between us— only that I found myself constantly contrasting my position with his. It was up to me to overcome my disadvantage and pass him if I could. And because he had no such handicap he had less incentive than I had to go ahead. In overcoming my handicap I developed myself physically and mentally. A CLUE TO CHARACTER. Many second spns do that, as you will see if you look through any list of successful men. Second sons often become leaders and statesmen. But what of those who fail to compensate them-selves-in this, way? They, suffer and do^not/knoMf-why^ until they-are told.

Every movement a person makes is a clue to success or failure. It shows his relations with other people. If ne carries himself awkwardly and is conscious of his awkwardness the cause is an inward struggle, an unresolved problem. You judge men and women every day by their actions. I have made a science of it. When a man commits a crime we say that he is a scoundrel. A crime is a big spectacular act. But it is possible to read a man's nature irom all his smaller every-day acts. Every crime is the result of a faulty relation to the rest of the world. That is why I must see how a person moves his' hands, his feet, his lips, his eyes. It is mind that puts movement into his face, and in his face his mmd can be read. The criminal.^begins to plot and prepare a crime when he is in a difficulty. He has not the courage to. face it in a co-operative way, and looks for an easy solution. Unless we can discover how this attitude arose we cannot hope to change it. It is invariably to be found in childhood. In the adult mind I seek the frozen past. Criminals always come from among those children who were overburdened in their first years of life or from among the children who were spoiled and'pampered. Behind every criminal we can trace a history of this' kind. Try to remember your own childhood and you will come to realise how everything that happened to "you then is important today. A WORLD OF GIANTS. You Were born into a World of giants, all bigger, wiser, more powerful than yourself. Were you afraid of them? Then yOu have had to struggle to overcome that fear. Even now it may visit you when you are. off your guard. What is the first thing you remember? One girl I know has a vivid recollection Of her. grandfather's funeral, which took, place' when she Was three. It is riot a good thing for a phild of three to see a dead man. This girl was impressed with the fear of death as a great and ever present danger. If I could speak to her I should ask, "What would you like to be later in life?" If she replied that she would like to be a doctor or a nurse it would show that she wanted to conquer her enemy in a good social way. Your dreams are almost as important to me as your childhood recollections. • i I believe, too, that the craze for imparting to children "the facts of life" has gone too far. Much of the information so imparted is unnecessary and inappropriate. Many adults seem to have a perfect mania for it, and are horribly afraid of the dangers of any one growing up in ignorance. If we look "into our own pasts and into the histories of others we shall not find such catastrophes as they expect. Young women come to me pattering glibly about their complexes and neuroses. Most of them know all the jargon of psycho-analysis; and about 40 per cent, have at least, an inkling of the technique of sex. But not one in five knows the ineaning and nature of love. A RECENT INVENTION. After all, love is a fairly recent invention—or discovbry. Romeo and Juliet is not a real love story, but a selfish affair. So-called romantic love is a contest in which each competitor tries to beguile and dominate the other; Can you wonder that many so-call-ed lovers are downright pathologically unhappy? My task is to show them that they are not in love at all and, if possible, to explain to them what love really, is. We are not lovers ,until we know that it takes two to make love. A woman who says that she knows her husband loves her because he gives her all the money she asks for ia on the wrong road unless she'asks herself what she gives him, Don't go to poets to learn, about love. The girl with the feather in her hat who sits opposite you in the bus or the street car, and the young man who gazes into'her eyes, may know more about love than all the poets put together. They know .where they stand in relation to themselves, each other, and the world. If we all knew that we should all be happy. It is the only true success. '