Alfred Adler

What are 4 traits of neuroticism

1. Excessive Worry

2. Emotional Instability

3. Perceiving everyday situations as distressing or threatening

4. Perceiving minor frustrations as hopelessly difficult

What is compensation?

Is it healthy? What does it typically lead to?

Compensation is a response to inferiority, where individuals do better in another (or sometimes the same) area.

It’s perfectly healthy, and typically allows the individual to build a sense of confidence.

What characterizes overcompensation?

1. A focus on appearances

2. Excessiveness, which leads to it being destructive.

Describe the feedback loop of overcompensation

Feelings of inferiority → Overcompensation → Dependence on external validation → Contingent self worth → Feelings of inferiority

What is an inferiority complex?

What can this lead to?

It’s when someone cannot adjust to the feeling of inferiority, and so it then exists so heavily that they cannot function properly.

Can lead to the individual avoiding challenges, or not feeling good enough no matter what they accomplish.

What is a superiority complex?

Where do they come from/start as?

Superiority complexes is sorta the adjective version of someone who overcompensates.

Superiority complexes develop as a method for those with inferiority complexes to escape their difficulties