Alfred Adler, an influential Austrian psychologist and founder of the school of individual psychology, challenged the predominant theories of Sigmund Freud by emphasizing the importance of social and familial factors in shaping personality development. Adler's holistic approach to psychology and his emphasis on the individual's quest for significance have had a lasting impact on psychotherapy and counseling.

"A simple rule in dealing with those who are hard to get along with is to remember that this person is striving to assert his superiority; and you must deal with him from that point of view."



"In the investigation of a neurotic style of life, we must always suspect an opponent, and note who suffers most because of the patient's condition. Usually this is a member of the family."



"The greater the feeling of inferiority that has been experienced, the more powerful is the urge to conquest and the more violent the emotional agitation."



"It is one of the most effective attitudes of the neurotic to measure thumbs down, so to speak, a real person by an ideal, since in doing so he can depreciate him as much as he wishes."



"Every therapeutic cure, and still more, any awkward attempt to show the patient the truth, tears him from the cradle of his freedom from responsibility and must therefore reckon with the most vehement resistance."



"Every individual acts and suffers in accordance with his peculiar teleology, which has all the inevitability of fate, so long as he does not understand it."



"To all those who walk the path of human cooperation war must appear loathsome and inhuman."



"We cannot say that if a child is badly nourished he will become a criminal. We must see what conclusion the child has drawn."



"Exaggerated sensitiveness is an expression of the feeling of inferiority."



"No experience is a cause of success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences, so-called trauma - but we make out of them just what suits our purposes."



"The truth is often a terrible weapon of aggression. It is possible to lie, and even to murder, with the truth."



"The educator must believe in the potential power of his pupil, and he must employ all his art in seeking to bring his pupil to experience this power."



"To be a human being means to possess a feeling of inferiority which constantly presses towards its own conquest. The greater the feeling of inferiority that has been experienced, the more powerful is the urge for conquest and the more violent the emotional agitation."

