Abstract
Alfred Adler was born in Vienna in 1870. He qualified as a medical doctor at the Viennese College of Medicine, but after a period of practice he turned his attention to psychiatry He married in 1897, after which he developed a life-long interest in socialism and sexual equality, and this was reflected in many of his ideas. In 1902, at Freud's invitation he joined the Vienna Psychoanalytic Circle, which had been founded by Freud. In 1917 he published his Study of Organ Inferiority and its Psychical Compensation: A Contribution to Clinical Medicine. In 1910 he was made president of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, but by 1911 it had become clear that his views had diverged greatly from Freud's and he resigned, along with a number of other members. In 1912 he published The Neurotic Constitution, in which he set out his theory of neurosis and the basic ideas behind individual psychology. In 1913 he founded what eventually became the Society for Individual Psychology. He began to develop an interest in children's education, and after the First World War he opened Vienna's first child guidance clinic in order to apply his education theories. He continued to practice and teach in Europe and the USA until 1937, when he died in Aberdeen, Scotland, at the age of 67.