In his early theory, Adler linked inferiority to physical defects. He discussed the inferiority complex caused by physical defects and its compensation. He pointed out that if a person's organ function is insufficient or defective, he will have an inferiority complex.
After feeling inferior, individuals want to make up for their physical deficiencies by fighting for power or becoming stronger. Individuals acting as a whole can compensate in two basic ways.
One is to concentrate on developing the functions of inferior organs after realizing their physical defects. For example, the infirm strengthen their physique by insisting on physical exercise. Adler called it "overcompensation" when individuals made great efforts to turn their original defects into their own advantages.
The other is to admit your own defects and develop other functions to make up for them. For example, the blind make up for it by developing hearing or touch, or the weak turn to the ideological field and seek compensation with a pen instead of a sword, all of which belong to the latter type of compensation.
Later, Adler expanded the scope of inferiority complex and put forward social inferiority complex and psychological inferiority complex. For example, a person from humble origins may feel inferior in society. However, the more common concept is psychological inferiority. This concept can be applied to anyone. Because any individual is in a state of incompetence, incompetence and ignorance for a long time after birth. The whole infancy depends entirely on adults to survive.
This determines that people have inferiority complex from the beginning of their lives. In the process of individual growth, due to obstacles in reality or imagination, individuals will feel incomplete or imperfect, resulting in a sense of inferiority. This is psychological inferiority. When Adler turned his emphasis on objective physical defects or functional defects to "subjective inferiority", his concept of inferiority was no longer biological, but psychological.
In Adler's view, inferiority is not a symbol of abnormal condition, but completely normal, and it is its existence that urges people to seek compensation.
Inferiority is the motive force of personality development. Everyone has a sense of inferiority to varying degrees, so psychological inferiority is the basic situation that everyone has to face. Inferiority can cause tension, so people should try to get rid of this situation. Everyone will make this effort. It's just that different people may have different ways to get rid of it.
One way is to improve your environment in an incorrect way. Another way is to give up any efforts to improve the situation because of discouragement. Although the individual tried to get rid of inferiority because he couldn't stand it, his efforts were doomed to failure because of the methods he adopted.
When a person's inferiority complex accumulates over time, the situation that leads to inferiority complex remains unchanged and problems still exist, every step taken by the individual will gradually lead him to self-deception, and his various problems will approach him with increasing pressure. ..... He anesthetized himself in various ways, but his real inferiority complex didn't move at all. They are still old and inferior caused by the old situation. They will become a long-term latent undercurrent in spiritual life. This situation, we can call it inferiority complex. "
As one of the great discoveries of individual psychology, inferiority complex is a well-known concept. Adler gave different explanations to this concept in different places. In the book What Life in Later Years Means to Us, his definition of inferiority is: "When an individual faces a problem that he can't cope with properly, he says that he can't solve it at all, and what appears at this time is inferiority."
The existence of inferiority complex means the emergence of a vicious circle: a person with inferiority complex wants to get rid of inferiority complex, but the way he takes can only make his efforts fail, thus aggravating his inferiority complex. So a cycle appears again and repeats itself.