Adler's description of this struggle was stated this way: "to be human means to feel inferior" (Adler 1956 p. 115) This is the origin of what we now refer to as the Inferiority Complex. In examining the role of courage, inferiority must be seen as the reason for courage being required. In Adler's mind, some people are born into culture with a mind and a body that are both acceptable, but also valuable. These people are fortunate enough never to find their body or mind inadequate or unattractive in contributing to society. But for most, they will experience a lack in one or both of these areas. The experience of this is mainly felt and subjective (attribute to Ansbacher), but can be concrete as well, manifest in physical deformities, handicaps or abnormalities in the sexual organs. Anxiety is developed at this point, and "arises from being torn between our expectations and the discrepant realities" (Yang p. 6). This may mean that a non-athletic man may have to give up his dream of playing competitive sports, or that a bipolar woman may have to give up certain expectations about living "normally"--being able to have the same type of vocation, relationship, or family that she sees in those around her. However, it may be even more subjective, as in the feeling of inferiority possessed by a first-born child who struggles to measure up to the expectations of the family placed upon his role in the birth order. In this sense, inferiority feelings come from bearing a social role that may result in failure, or create the fear of failure. our feeling that we "are incapable of meeting the the demands of the world"(p. 6).
In this sense, these feelings become a "persistent threat to well-being". When the imiment threat that we might fail "grows larger than our fear...fear becomes anxiety"(p.5). In Adler's mind, this happens consistently throughout each person's life as they reach points of anxiety, yet most make the necessary adjustments for this both in their concept of themselves, and in how they contribute to society around them. This individual would be courageous in the eyes of Alder, for he or she learned live with what is real, rather than demand a solution according to an ideal. However, the person who cannot do this, who cannot give up the wish to be as beautiful, as talented, as fit as certain others, or who is simply hung upon fulfilling a familial role, becomes the Neurotic.
In his explanation of Adler's "neurotic", Wayland Vaughan stated that the words to escape the mouth of the neurotic individual would be something like: "think of what I might have been, had I not been so seriously handicapped"(Vaughn 1927 p. 361). This idea of the neurotic is attributed to Freud, but for Adler, rather than the abnormal out-workings of repressed drives, it was the condition of a person who had lost their courage. Adler likened this person to a anxious child, who in receiving comfort from its mother, realizes at some point that their anxiety can become a tool for manipulating the behavior of the mother (Adler 1956 p. 304). So too, the neurotic may actively attempt to dominate others, or passively attract attention to himself. Adler said that "fear of defeat is the only reason for the will to escape", but that the neurotic turns this into a "fictional form of anxiety, which the patient interprets to himself variously but never truly..." (Adler 1956 p. 305). As the neurotic individual resists responsibility, "discouragement," Adler said, "forces him to put a distance between himself and absolutely necessary decisions." The escape comes in the form of avoiding normal "tasks of life" (Adler 1956) the majority of which are relationships and social life.
This inferiority is inextricably tied to our ability to relate socially--the more inferior we feel, the more we are turned toward isolation. Courage then for Adler, is ultimately a movement towards social contribution and participation. If social life could be understood in terms of a battlefield, with a front and a rear, the neurotic "separates himself from the front of life" (Adler 1956 p. 305). This is where Adler's theory grew most emphatic, with his concept of gemeinschaftsgefühl-the word Adler used to describe someone's ideal state of mental health (Yang et al 2010). The best english understanding of the word is something like "social feeling". It is this aspect of the person that hinges on being encouraged or discouraged. For Adler, "social interest is not an inborn ability, but a potential for us to develop, such as learning to add or subtract, throw a football or cook a meal" (Yang et al. 2010 p. 18). In this respect, both the well-adjusted person, and the neurotic have to excercise the same muscle of courage in participating and contributing to their community. But what this means, is an actual investment in relationships.
Adler spoke of cooperation as a quality fundamental to the individual from birth. This begins with the child's dependent relationship with the mother, and expands to the family. Authors Yang, Milleren and Blagen sum up Adler's ideas by saying that social interest is "an innate potential that must be consciously developed" (Yang et al 2010 p. 18). The innate desire must be connected with the learned ability to associate oneself with others, and being willing to receive from them, and give out. For the person struggling to overcome a neurotic tendency, psychological disorder, or fight against an imposed family role, the challenge to cooperate is not a simple one. Ansbacher said of the inferiority that "a discouraged individual may use a real or assumed deficiency for the purpose of special benefit". This is precisely where the necessity for courage arrives. The individual must reach out in cooperation with others. For Adler, this often meant that therapuetic relationship was the first attempt at this cooperation. He said that the "task of the physician or psychologist is to give the patient the experience of contact with a fellow man, and then enable him to transfer this awakened social interest to others" (Adler 1956 p. 341) Adler saw this role like the role of a mother, who's responsibility it was to introduce the child to the world. If, he thought, the mother failed to do this, the responsibility often fell to the therapist later in the patient's life. By that time, that patient would have become much more set in his or her personality, making the shift to social interest allowed. The relationship with the therapist however, would provide a motherly safety net in allowing the patient to explore this interest. Here the patient begins to move from a place of discouragement (avoiding or being suspicious of society, or using relationships simply for recognition) to new and uncovered ground where the courage to participate is instilled by the therapist.
Adler saw neurosis and psychosis as the"alibi for non-participation and withdrawal"( Ansbacher 1956 p. 259) when a person has given up on their courage(Adler 1956 p. 343). So also he saw the relationship with the therapist as the model for social interest--resuming one's interest in another, by way of the therapist's will to put work into the relationship. What must follow a renewed interest in the community, is the desire to contribute to that community. Authors Yang, Milliren and Blagen state that "there is not a one-to-one correspondence between contribution and reward, and individuals must be able to give far more than they recieve" (Yang et al. 2010 p. 20) For the patient struggling to move out of isolation, the difficulty lies in having enough patience with oneself to realize that a lifetime of isolation will not allow him or her to quickly build good and healthy relationships. Courage takes form in the act of seeing the joy brought about in others by their interpersonal relationships, the give and take that is required but freely given in friendship, and choosing to contribute as well, without requirement. As interest at the world around one grows, so does the level of an individual's contribution to it--both environmently and relationally.
Adler argued that all schools of psychiatry in his day owed their success with neuroses mainly (and claimed this as the corner stone of Individual Psychology) to their relationship with the patient. That therapy existed mainly to show the individual what social interest looked like, and "to give him encouragement" (Adler 1956 343). In the context of this relationship, the therapist gives the patient the courage to look at the areas of possible failure or anxiety in life as obstacles to push through on the way to participation and relationship, rather than grow into fearful giants that threaten the stability of the psyche. Adler called courage the "health of the soul" (need source), and it was for him the sign that his patients were beginning to look beyond their own ailments to the world and benefit of others.
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