Freud – Adler – Jung

November 2, 1902:

Very Honored Sir Colleague:

A small circle of colleagues and followers is going to give me the pleasure of meeting at my house once a week in the evening at half past eight in order to discuss themes which interest us, psychology and neuropathology. I know of Reitler, Max Kahane, and Stekel. Will you have the goodness to join us? We have agreed upon next Thursday, and I am expecting your kind answer whether you would like to come and whether this evening would suit you.

With hearty greetings as your colleague,

S. Freud

Adler described personality around the same time as Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. They worked on several theories together until Adler rejected Freud's emphasis on sex, and maintained that personality difficulties are rooted in a feeling of inferiority deriving from restrictions on the individual's need for self-assertion.

The criticism of Adler began with his lack of consideration of himself as a disciple of Freud. While Freud was imposing, patrician type who had come from a highly educated background and lived in a fashionable district of Vienna; Adler was the plan-looking son of a grain Merchant who had grown up on the city’s outskirts. While Freud was known for his knowledge of the classical world and his collection of antiquities, Adler worked hard for better working-class health and education and for women rights. The pair’s notable divide occurred in 1911, after Adler had become progressively annoyed with Freud’s belief that all psychological consequences were yielded by kept down sexual feelings. A few years earlier Adler had published a book Study of Organ Inferiority and Its Psychical Compensation, which argued that people’s perceptions of their own body and its shortcomings were a major factor in shaping their goals in life. Freud believed human beings to be wholly driven by the stirrings of the unconscious mind, but Adler saw us as social beings that create a style of life in response to the environment and to what we feel we lack. Individuals naturally strive for personal major power and a sense of our own identity, but if healthy we also seek to adjust to society and make a donation to the greater good. 

Contrary to Freud, Adler believed the conscious and unconscious worked in pairing with one another towards the fictional finalism. Adler stated that each individual has an incomparable way of life, some are negative and some are positive. Adler didn't like to take big groups of people and put them into universal categories but when identifying basic lifestyles it was easier to do so. He studied several types of people and he came to this conclusion. There are the four main types of people; three out of four are negative. The ruling type tries to control others. The getting type tends to be very passive and goes along with others ideas, rarely inventive. The avoiding types try to isolate themselves to avoid defeat, they are usually very cold. The socially useful type, values having control over their lives and strive to do good things for the sake of society.

One the other hand, when we compare Adler with Jung we come face to face with the basic 8 differences. Which are for Adler ; behavior have interest in the social basis, generally one’s life depend on sociality, self is the individual's unique life experiences to ensure satisfaction , creative self-creates the personality ,each individual is the creator of their personality-active, we are aware of everything we do, unconscious is a simple lack of awareness, each person is unique , each human plans life himself, it’s not fatalistic, determinant of personality is the years of childhood social environment.

For Jung ;  human behavior  are managed by the archetypes, one’s general ideas of his depend on biophysics , personality is the center, covered the remaining ancestral ruins, individual and joint effects the emerge of parts of unconscious personality-passive, unconscious processes have a significant impact our behavior, human evolution is common. Human personality is common in certain areas, common evolutionary process continues, remains of the human species evolution. History determines who people are; determinant of personality is a common evolution. 

As a result, both Jung and Adler were students of Sigmund Freud but as the principle of all science branches, psychological studies need criticism. So these students pass this course entirely accurate. 

Aslıhan TÜZÜN

Psikolog