The Inferiority Complex Fad

But nowhere was the need to appear self-assured more apparent than in a new concept in psychology called the inferiority complex. The IC, as it became known in the popular press, was developed in the 1920s by a Viennese psychologist named Alfred Adler to describe feelings of inadequacy and their consequences. “Do you feel insecure?” inquired the cover of Adler’s best-selling book, Understanding Human Nature. “Are you fainthearted? Are you submissive?” Adler explained that all infants and small children feel inferior, living as they do in a world of adults and older siblings. In the normal process of growing up they learn to direct these feelings into pursuing their goals. But if things go awry as they mature, they might be saddled with the dreaded IC—a grave liability in an increasingly competitive society.

The idea of wrapping their social anxieties in the neat package of a psychological complex appealed to many Americans. The Inferiority Complex became an all-purpose explanation for problems in many areas of life, ranging from love to parenting to career. In 1924, Collier’s ran a story about a woman who was afraid to marry the man she loved for fear that he had an IC and would never amount to anything. Another popular magazine ran an article called “Your Child and That Fashionable Complex,” explaining to moms what could cause an IC in kids and how to prevent or cure one. Everyone had an IC, it seemed; to some it was, paradoxically enough, a mark of distinction. Lincoln, Napoleon, Teddy Roosevelt, Edison, and Shakespeare—all had suffered from ICs, according to a 1939 Collier’s article. “So,” concluded the magazine, “if you have a big, husky, in-growing inferiority complex you’re about as lucky as you could hope to be, provided you have the backbone along with it.”

Notes:

Another fashionable mental disorder from the past.

Folksonomies: psychology fads mental health mental disorder

Taxonomies:
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/science/medicine/psychology and psychiatry (0.420683)
/health and fitness/addiction (0.401336)

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Concepts:
Psychology (0.977488): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Inferiority complex (0.677090): dbpedia | freebase
Complex (0.670785): dbpedia | freebase
Body dysmorphic disorder (0.564316): dbpedia | freebase | yago
Carl Jung (0.547061): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc | yago
Superiority complex (0.509361): dbpedia | freebase
Explanation (0.500388): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Classical Adlerian psychology (0.483885): dbpedia | freebase

 Quiet
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book:  Cain, Susan (2012-01-24), Quiet, Random House LLC, Retrieved on 2013-10-14
  • Source Material [books.google.com]
  • Folksonomies: psychology