Alfred Adler’s theories include the social mistaken pattern which is built up in the first four or five years. Mostly we find as reasons for it: imperfect organs or that the child had been pampered or that we find hated children – is among orphans, sometimes illegitimate children, ugly children, not wanted children, and so on.
This pattern is fixed and can be changed only if we are able to convince this child about the mistakes or later in life.
Therefore we could eliminate the mistakes in this pattern either in prevention to educate the family how to educate children rightly or we could make the school an instrument of the social progress to recognize the mistakes in their beginning and to accomplish more social interest among the pupils. Later in life it is more difficult and it must be an individual treatment; how to convince such a person and how to change him.
In this way we are sure that the key of the individual psychology is the most important and worthwhile key and we can guess much better than with other methods what is the mistake made in the childhood and how to correct it.
And so, ladies and gentlemen, I come to the following conclusion:
I discovered 20 years ago the inferiority complex which had been proved to be a very worthwhile key for understanding human nature and personalities.
As I have explained an individual is a unit from the beginning of life and his style of life cannot be changed without understanding the mistakes made in the roots, and these roots are lying in the family life in which each individual is formed and moulded. So we can find that this great striving to overcome the difficulties of life is striving going on from a feeling of inferiority and leading towards a goal of superiority is always combined with a certain individual degree of social interest.
We find in each expression, in each movement of each individual how he has used his training for social interest and so when he meets later in life the problems which can be solved rightly only if they are really solved in a great social feeling, then it will be decided if he is adjusted rightly or not.
So we find at last that all the failures in life: problem children, neurotic and psychotic persons, delinquents, suicides, drunkards, and so on are always lacking social interest. And it is not only this interest but in the same way they are also lacking courage, understanding and the right training for the solution of the social problems.
