An inferiority complex is a combination of a person’s psychological and emotional sensations, expressed in a sense of one’s own inferiority and an irrational belief in the superiority of others over oneself. The inferiority complex arises due to various reasons, such as: discrimination, mental trauma, own mistakes and failures, etc. The inferiority complex significantly affects the well-being and behavior of a person.
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 Alfred Adler was the first to describe the inferiority complex |
The first to investigate and describe the inferiority complex was the Viennese psychologist Alfred Adler .
People with an inferiority complex see themselves as something insignificant and flawed. Many patients develop depression on its basis, which in severe cases may be followed by the risk of suicide .
One of the symptoms of the inferiority complex may be a demonstration of the signals by which a person suffering from it tries to draw the attention of other people. Other symptoms may include lack of contact, fear of people, fear of making a mistake, constant stress. The inferiority complex is sometimes also a subconscious cause of speech defects.
Often, attempts are made to compensate for the complex of one's own inferiority by the exposed role of the victim. Young men often mask increased aggressiveness and alcohol consumption , as well as status symbols, such as gold jewelry, sports cars, characteristic clothing, etc., to mask the feeling of inferiority. Excessive arrogance can also indicate an internal violation of self-esteem.
The inferiority complex is, on the whole, a negative phenomenon. However, in some cases, it can motivate a person to achieve positive goals in life [1] .
Content
Development of an inferiority complex
Alfred Adler believed that an inferiority complex develops in children for several reasons [2] :
- Physical disabilities (for example, the inferiority of an organ, short stature, disproportion).
- Excessive parental care, which does not allow you to learn how to solve problems on your own.
- Lack of parental attention reduces self-confidence.
Physical disabilities are often tried to compensate for by intensive training. For example, Demosthenes , who stuttered from childhood, became one of the great speakers; Wilma Rudolph suffered from polio as a child, which is why she had long problems with walking and became a three-time Olympic champion in athletics. Adler suggested that great people achieved their results, including in creativity , in the process of overcoming their own inferiority complexes.
If the inferiority complex could not be overcome, then this can lead to neurosis in adulthood. Sometimes the inferiority complex manifests itself externally in the superiority complex - in boasting and arrogance.
The sense of inferiority and the resulting depression are often rooted in early childhood. It is scientifically proven that insufficient attention to the child and constant criticism can undermine the development of a healthy self-esteem in a teenager.
It should be noted that Sigmund Freud in his "Lectures on the Introduction to Psychoanalysis" wrote:
I know that you have heard a lot about the sense of inferiority that characterizes just the neurotics. It manifests itself, in particular, in the so-called fiction. The writer, who used the phrase "inferiority complex," believes that this satisfies all the requirements of psychoanalysis and raises his creation to a higher psychological level. In fact, the artificial phrase “inferiority complex” is almost never used in psychoanalysis. It is not for us something simple, all the more elementary. To reduce it to self-perception of possible underdevelopment of organs, as representatives of the school of so-called individual psychology like to do, seems to us a short-sighted fallacy. The sense of inferiority has deeply erotic roots. A child feels inferior if he notices that he is unloved, and in the same way an adult. The only organ that can be considered inferior is the rudimentary penis, the clitoris of the girl. But for the most part, the feeling of inferiority comes from the relationship of the I to my Super-I , being, like a feeling of guilt, an expression of tension between them. The sense of inferiority and guilt are generally difficult to separate from each other. Perhaps it would be right to see in the first an erotic addition to a sense of moral inferiority. In psychoanalysis, we paid little attention to this issue of the distinction of concepts.
Precisely because the inferiority complex has become so popular, I allow myself to make a small digression here. One historical figure of our time, who is still alive today, but has retired, due to a birth injury, there was some underdevelopment of one of the hands. A very famous writer of our days, most willingly writing biographies of wonderful people, took up the life of this person I mentioned. But it’s difficult to suppress the need for deepening in psychology when writing a biography. Therefore, our author ventured into an attempt to build the entire development of the character of his hero on a sense of inferiority caused by this physical defect. But at the same time, he missed one small but important fact. Usually, mothers to whom fate has given a sick or inferior child try to make up for this injustice with excessive love. In our case, the proud mother behaved differently, she refused the child love because of his lack. When he became a powerful man, he proved with all his actions that he had never forgiven his mother. If you imagine the significance of maternal love for children's emotional life, you will apparently mentally amend the biographer’s inferiority theory.
- Sigmund Freud . "Lectures on the introduction of psychoanalysis" [3]
Apparently, Freud was referring to Kaiser Wilhelm II , who from birth suffered from a congenital physical disability - a damaged left hand, which was 15 cm shorter than his right.
Along with psychological factors in the development of the inferiority complex, the role of other external factors — demographic, social, political, religious, ethnic, and even sexual — is no less important. Often, members of minorities, being victims of discrimination, suffer from an inferiority complex in one or more of the mentioned categories. For example, an ethnic inferiority complex is often found among ethnic minorities. Among people who grew up in poor families, against the background of the prosperity of other people, a complex of class inferiority can form, etc.
See also
- Sociophobia
- Anxiety Disorder
- Psychoanalysis
- Megalomania
Notes
Links
- Alfred Adler The inferiority complex and the superiority complex.
- Z. Freud. Introduction to Psychoanalysis: Lectures. - M .: Science, 1989.