A Step Back to go forward

Editorial

Abstract

The psychic grow of each individual and especially the "abnormal deviants" [...] depend on the lack of adaptation to the demands of the world around them. This contrast stems from a sense of inferiority whose origins go back to the difficulties encountered during childhood [...] and their influence on psychic development [...]. It is in this way that an organic inferiority or
physical infirmity can contribute to the determination of certain psychic attitudes and thus "the sense of inferiority" [...]. Comparative Individual Psychology considers it useful to investigate the origin and nature of such phenomena and then to relate them back to the present state and try to draw predictions for what concerns a future development [...].In agreement with Virchow (1854) [scholar of "neuroglia" and its degenerations ed.] [...] one considers from an organic point of view the individual as a unified whole whose parts collabor all in the service of a common end. If it is true that the various attitudes, aptitudes and dispositions of the organism combine to form a unified personality, it may be said that each of the vital expressions is the point of convergence of the past, the present and the future" (Adler, 1912).
These words of Alfred Adler not only mark an even historical development of His "Doctrine," but are also the best commentary for this Editorial