Kindle Notes & Highlights
in striving to achieve a definite goal.
In every individual we see that feelings have grown and developed in the direction and to the degree which were essential to the attainment of his goal.
We can notice also that feelings appear and disappear at need.
All neurotic patients exclude every part of life in which they do not feel strong enough to be the conqueror.
The emotional tone is as fixed as the style of life.
By concentration, he tends to exclude conflicting tasks and incompatible interests; and thus he evokes the appropriate feelings and functions. The lack of these feelings and functions — as in impotence, premature ejaculation, Perversion and frigidity — is established by refusing to exclude inappropriate tasks and interests. Such abnormalities are always induced by a mistaken goal of superiority and a mistaken style- of life. We always find in such cases a tendency to expect consideration rather than to give it, a lack of social feeling, and a failure in courage and optimistic activity.
inescapable feelings of guilt.
he had an excuse prepared for all failures to equal him.
His feelings of guilt were means to make him appear more honest than others and in this way he was struggling to achieve superiority. His struggles, however, were directed towards the useless side of life.
his whole neurosis was a purposive exclusion of every activity in which he feared a defeat.
By the end of the fifth year his personality has crystallized. The meaning he gives to life, the goal he pursues, his style of approach, and his emotional disposition are all fixed. They can be changed later; but they can be changed only if he becomes free from the mistake involved in his childhood crystallization. Just as all his previous expressions were coherent with his interpretation of life, so now, if he is able to correct the mistake, his new expressions will be coherent with his new interpretation.
Psychology is the understanding of an individual's attitude towards the impressions of his body.
So the mind becomes overburdened and they become self-centered and egoistic. When a child is always occupied with the imperfection of its organs and the difficulties of movement, it has no attention to spare for what is outside itself. It finds neither the time nor the freedom to interest itself in others, and in consequence grows up with a lesser degree of social feeling and ability to cooperate.
Only a child who desires to contribute to the whole, whose interest is not centered in himself, can train successfully to compensate for defects. If children desire only to rid themselves of difficulties, they will continue backward. They can keep up their courage only if they have a purpose in view for their efforts and if the achievement of this purpose is more important -to them than the obstacles which stand in the way. It is a question of where their interest and attention is directed. If they are striving towards an object external to themselves, they will quite naturally train and equip
...more
If a child is to draw together his powers and overcome his difficulties, there must be a goal for his movements outside of himself; a goal based on interest in reality, interest in others, and interest in cooperation.
If the child notices how much value is placed on this point, he will very probably resist. It will give him a very good opportunity to assert his Opposition to this kind of education. If a child resists the treatment which his parents give him, he will always find his way to attack them at their point of greatest weakness.
From every angle, we can see that enuresis is really a creative expression; the child is speaking with his bladder instead of his mouth. The organic imperfection does no more than offer him the means for the expression of his opinion.
Children who express themselves in this way are always suffering from a tension. Generally they belong to the class of spoiled children who have lost their position of being the unique center of attention.
even by unpleasant means.
In different circumstances, or with a different organ imperfection, they would have chosen other means.
The choice of symptom depends in part on the organic situation and in part on the attitude of the environment.
we can fairly conclude that the whole form and development of the body is affected by the mind and reflects the errors or deficiencies of the mind. We can often observe bodily expressions which are plainly the end results of mental failings, where the right way to compensate for a difficulty has not been discovered.
To a certain degree every emotion finds some bodily expression. The individual will show his emotion in some visible form; perhaps in his posture and attitude, perhaps in his face, perhaps in the trembling of his legs and knees. Similar changes could be found in the organs themselves.
each individual's body speaks in a language of its own.
Their point of view depends on their personal experience; with some there is a connection, with others not.
A mental tension affects both the voluntary system and the vegetative nerve system. Where there is tension, there is action in the voluntary system. The individual drums on the table, plucks at his lip or tears up pieces of paper. If he is tense, he has to move in some way.
By means of the vegetative system, the tension is communicated to the whole body; and so, with every emotion, the whole body is itself in a tension. The manifestations of this tension, however, are not as clear at every point; and we speak of Symptoms only in those points where the results are discoverable.
If we examine more closely we shall find that every part of the body is involved in an emotional expression; and that these physical expressions are the consequences of the action of the mind and the body. It is always necessary to look for these reciprocal actions of the mind on the body, and of the body on the mind, since both of them are parts of the whole with which we are concerned.
a style of life and a corresponding emotional disposition exert a continuous influence on the development of the body.
the mind can influence the brain.
If the mind can exercise such an influence over the brain; if the brain is no more than the tool of the mind—its most important tool, but still only its tool — then we can find ways to develop and improve this tool. No one born with a certain standard of brain need remain inescapably bound by it all his life: methods may be found to make the brain better fitted for life.
A mind which has fixed its goal in a mistaken direction — which, for example, is not developing the ability to cooperate — will fail to exercise a helpful influence on the growth of the brain. For this reason we find that many children who lack the ability to cooperate show, in later life, that they have not developed their intelligence, their ability to understand.
we could recognize from all the partial expressions of an individual the degree of his ability to cooperate.
So long as the striving is only instinctive, mistakes can easily be made.
The way had not yet been found to increase the degree of cooperation in individuals who suffered from these peculiarities; their drawbacks were therefore overemphasized, and they became the victims of popular superstition.
Its development includes a larger or smaller degree of cooperation; and it is from this degree of cooperation that we learn to judge and understand the individual.
psychology: it is the understanding of deficiencies in cooperation.
If we see emotions that apparently cause difficulties and run counter to the individual's own welfare, it is completely useless to begin by trying to change these emotions. They are the right expression of the individual's style of life, and they can be uprooted only if he changes his style of life.
We must never treat a Symptom or a single expression: we must discover the mistake made in the whole style of life, in the way the mind has interpreted its experiences, in the meaning it has given to life, and in the actions with which it has answered the impressions received from the body and from the environment.
Styles of life are the proper subject-matter of psychology and the material for investigation;
In Individual Psychology, however, we are considering the psyche itself, the unified mind; we are examining the meaning which individuals give to the world and to themselves, their goals, the direction of their strivings, and the approaches they make to the problems of life. The best key which we so far possess for understanding psychological differences is given by examining the degree of ability to cooperate.
We must recognize the specific discouragement which he shows in his style of life; we must encourage him at the precise point where he falls short in courage.
He is distinguished from the others by the kind of situation in which he feels unable to continue on the useful side of life; by the limits he has put to his strivings and activities.
We do not need to ask: we need only watch the individual's behavior. It is there that we shall notice what tricks he uses to reassure himself of his importance.
Behind every one who behaves as if he were superior to others, we can suspect a feeling of inferiority which calls for very special efforts of concealment.
It does not follow, therefore, that an individual with strong feelings of inferiority will appear to be a submissive, quiet, restrained, inoffensive sort of person. Inferiority feelings can express themselves in a thousand ways.
Inferiority feelings are in some degree common to all of us, since we all find ourselves in positions which we wish to improve. If we have kept our courage, we shall set about ridding ourselves of these feelings by the only direct, realistic and satisfactory means — by improving the situation.
instead of overcoming obstacles he will try to hypnotize himself, or auto-intoxicate himself, into feeling superior.
If he feels weak, he moves into circumstances where he can feel strong.
He does not train to be stronger, to be more adequate; he trains to appear stronger in his own eyes.
