What Life Could Mean to You

by Alfred Adler

  Our first point with problem children is to find out their main interest. Through this it is easier to encourage them on the whole. In cases of young people who have not been able to settle on an occupation, or older people who have been occupational failures, their real interest should be found out and used, in the right hands, to give them vocational guidance, combined with an effort to find them employment. This is not always easy. In our own time the great number of unemployed is a matter for alarm. This is not the right expression for a time in which people are trying to improve cooperation. I believe therefore that everybody who has seen the importance of cooperation should strive to see that there are no unemployed individuals, that work is open to everybody who wants it. We may be helped in this way by furthering movements for training schools, technical schools and adult education. Many of the unemployed are untrained and unskilled. Some of them, perhaps, have not been interested in social life. It is a great burden for mankind to have untrained members of society and members who are not interested in the common welfare. These people really feel themselves backward and at a disadvantage; and we can understand it if untrained and unskilled people make up a large proportion of criminals, neurotics and suicides. Because of their lack of training, they lag in the rear of mankind. All parents and teachers and all who are interested in the future development and improvement of mankind should make efforts that all children are better trained and that such a great number of them do not come into adult life with no special place in the division of labor.

  XI. MAN AND FELLOW MAN

  The oldest striving of mankind is for men to join with their fellow men. It is through interest in our fellow men that all the progress of our race has been made. The family is an organization in which interest in other people is essential; and as far back as we can go into our history we find this tendency for human beings to group themselves in families.

  Primitive tribes held themselves together by common symbols, and the purpose of the symbol was to unite men with their fellows in cooperation. The simplest primitive religion is the worship of a totem.

  One group would worship a lizard, another a bull or serpent. Those who worshiped the same totem lived together and cooperated, and each member of the group felt himself a brother of the other members. These primitive customs were one of the greatest steps of mankind in fixing and stabilizing cooperation. On the festival of these primitive religions, every man who worshiped the lizard would join his fellows, and they would discuss together questions of the harvest, and of how they could defend themselves against animals and the powers of the air. This was the meaning of the festival.

  Marriage was regarded as an affair in which the interests of the whole group were involved. Each brother who worshiped the same totem had to find his partner outside of his group, in accordance with social restrictions. It should still be realized that love and marriage are not private affairs, but common tasks in which the whole of mankind should take part in mind and spirit. There is a certain responsibility in marrying, since it is a task expected by the whole of society, and the whole of society is interested that healthy children should be born and that they should be brought up in the spirit of cooperation. All mankind should, therefore, be willing to cooperate in every marriage. The means of primitive societies, their totems and their elaborate systems to control marriage, may now seem to us ridiculous; but their importance in their time can hardly be overrated; and their real end was to increase human cooperation.

  The most important task imposed by religion has always been, “Love thy neighbor." Here again, in another form, we have the same striving to increase interest in our fellow men. It is interesting, too, that now from a scientific standpoint we can confirm the value of this striving. The pampered child asks us, “Why should I love my neighbor? Does my neighbor love me?” and so reveals his lack of training in cooperation and his interest in himself. It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from among such individuals that all human failures spring. There are many religions and confessions which try in their own way to increase cooperation; and I, for my own part, would agree with every human effort which recognized cooperation as the final goal. There is no need to fight, criticize and undervalue. We are not blessed with the possession of the absolute truth and there are several ways leading towards the final goal of cooperation.

  In politics we know that the best means can be abused; but nobody could accomplish anything by politics if he did not create cooperation. Every politician must have as his final goal the improvement of mankind; and the improvement of mankind means always a higher degree of cooperation. Often we are not very well equipped for judging which politician or which political party can really lead towards improvement. Each individual judges in accordance with his own style of life. But if a political party creates fellow men in its own circle, we have no cause to resent the activity. So, too, with national movements; if it is the aim of those engaged in such movements to bring up the children as real fellow men and to increase social feeling, they may proceed along their own traditions, worship their own nationality, and attempt to influence and change the laws as they think best: we should not disagree with their effort. Class movement, also, is group movement and cooperation, and, if its goal is the improvement of mankind, we should avoid prejudice. So all movements should be judged only in accordance with their ability to further interest in our fellow men and we shall find that there are many ways to help in increasing cooperation. Perhaps there are better and worse ways; but, if the goal of cooperation is granted, it is useless to attack one method because it may not be the best.

  What we must disagree with is the view of life in which people are looking only for what is given them, looking only for a personal advantage. This is the greatest conceivable obstacle to individual and common progress. It is only through our interest in our fellows that any of our human capacities develop. To speak, to read and write all presuppose a bridge with other men. Language itself is a common creation of mankind, the result of social interest. Understanding is a common matter, not a private function. To understand is to understand as we expect that everybody should understand. It is to connect ourselves in a common meaning with other people, to be controlled by the common sense of all mankind.

  There are some people who are seeking mainly for their own interests and for personal superiority. They give a private meaning to life; life should exist for them alone. This is no understanding, however; it is an opinion which no one else in the whole wide world could share.

  We find, therefore, that such people are unable to connect themselves with their fellow men. Often when we see a child who has trained towards interest in himself, we find that he has a hangdog or vacant look in his face; and we can see something of the same look in the faces of criminals or of the insane. They are not using their eyes to connect with others. They are not seeing in the same way. Sometimes such children and adults will not even look at their fellow beings; they turn their eyes away and look elsewhere. The same failure of connection is shown in many neurotic symptoms; very noticeably, for example, in compulsive blushing, in stammering, in impotence or premature ejaculation. These all reveal an inability to join with other human beings, rising from a lack of interest in them.

  The highest degree of isolation is represented by insanity. Even insanity is not incurable if the interest in others can be aroused; but it represents a greater distance from fellow men than any other expression except, perhaps, suicide. It is an art to cure such cases, and a very difficult art. We must win the patient back to cooperation; and we can do it only by patience and the kindliest and friendliest manner. Once I was called in to do what I could for a girl with dementia praecox. She had suffered from this condition for eight years and for the last two years had been in an asylum. She barked like a dog, spat, tore her clothes and tried to eat her handkerchief. We can see how far she had turned away from interest in
human beings. She wanted to play the role of a dog and we can understand this. She felt that her mother had treated her as a dog; and perhaps she was saying, "The more I see of human beings, the more I should like to be a dog." I spoke to her on eight successive days and she did not answer a word. I continued to speak to her and after thirty days she began to talk in a confused and unintelligible way. I was a friend to her and she was encouraged.

  If a patient of this type is encouraged he does not know what to do with his courage. His resistance against his fellow men is very strong.

  We can predict the conduct he will try when his courage comes back to some degree but he still does not wish to be cooperative. He is like a problem child: he will try to be a nuisance: he will break anything he can lay hands on, or he will hit the attendant. When I next spoke to this girl she hit me. I had to consider what I should do. The only answer that would surprise her was to put up no resistance. You can imagine the girl, — she was not a girl of great physical strength. I let her hit me and looked friendly. This she did not expect; it took away every challenge from her. She still did not know what to do with her reawakened courage. She broke my window and cut her hand on the glass. I did not reproach her, but bandaged her hand. The usual way of meeting such violence, to confine her and lock her in her room, was the wrong way. We must act differently if we wish to win this girl. It is the greatest mistake to expect an insane person to act as a normal person. Almost everyone is annoyed and irritated because the insane do not respond like ordinary beings. They do not eat, they tear their clothes, and so on. Let them do it. There is no other possibility of helping them.

  After this, the girl recovered. A year passed and she had continued perfectly healthy. One day when I had to visit the asylum in which she had been confined, I met her on the way. "What are you doing?” she asked me. "Come with me," I answered. "I am going to the asylum where you lived for two years." We went to the asylum together and I asked for the doctor who had treated her there. I suggested that he should talk with her while I saw another patient. When I came back, the doctor was very much out of temper. "She is perfectly healthy," he said, “but there is one thing about her that displeases me. She does not like me." I still see this girl from time to time and she has remained in good health for ten years. She earns her own living, is reconciled to her fellows, and no one who saw her would believe that she had ever suffered from insanity.

  Two conditions which reveal with especial clarity the distance from other human beings are paranoia and melancholia. In paranoia the patient accuses all mankind; he thinks that his fellow men are organized in a conspiracy against him. In melancholia, the patient accuses himself: he says, for example, “I have ruined my whole family”, or "I have lost all my money and my children must starve." If a person accuses himself, however, this is only the outside face he shows; he is really accusing others. A woman of much prominence and influence, for example, had an accident and could no longer continue with her social activities. She had three daughters who had married and she felt very much alone. About the same time she lost her husband. She had been pampered before and she tried to replace what she had lost. She began to travel abroad in Europe.

  She no longer felt as important as she had been, however, and while she was in Europe she began to suffer from melancholia. Her friends left her.

  Melancholia is a disorder which is a great trial for those in the environment. She cabled for her daughters to come, but each of them had an excuse and none of them came over to her. When she returned home, her most frequent words were, “My daughters have been so very kind." Her daughters had left her alone, they had let a nurse take care of her, and now that she had come back they visited her only at intervals. We cannot take her words at their surface value. They are an accusation, and everyone who knew the circumstances would know that they were an accusation. Melancholia is like a long-continued rage and reproach against others, though for the purpose of gaining care, sympathy and support, the patient seems only to be dejected about his own guilt. A melancholiac's first memory is generally something like this: "I remember I wanted to lie on the couch, but my brother was lying there. I cried so much that he had to leave."

  Melancholiacs are often inclined to revenge themselves by committing suicide, and the doctor's first care is to avoid giving them an excuse for suicide. I myself try to relieve the whole tension by proposing to them, as the first rule in treatment, “Never do anything you don't like." This seems to be very modest, but I believe that it goes to the root of the whole trouble. If a melancholiac is able to do anything he wants, whom can he accuse? What has he got to revenge himself for?” If you want to go to the theater," I tell him, “or to go on a holiday, do it. If you find on the way that you don't want to, stop it." It is the best situation anyone could be in. It gives a satisfaction to his striving for superiority. He is like God and can do what he pleases. On the other hand, it does not fit very easily into his style of life. He wants to dominate and accuse others and if they agree with him there is no way of dominating them. This rule is a great relief and I have never had a suicide among my patients. It is understood, of course, that it is best to have someone to watch such a patient, and some of my patients have not been watched as closely as I should have liked. So long as there is an observer, there is no danger.

  Generally the patient replies, “But there is nothing I like doing." I have prepared for this answer, because I have heard it so often. "Then refrain from doing anything you dislike”, I say. Sometimes, however, he will reply, “I should like to stay in bed all day." I know that, if I allow it, he will no longer want to do it. I know that, if I hinder him, he will start a war. I always agree.

  This is one rule. Another attacks their style of life still more directly. I tell them, "You can be cured in fourteen days if you follow this prescription. Try to think every day how you can please someone." See what this means to them. They are occupied with the thought, “How can I worry someone." The answers are very interesting. Some say, “This will be very easy for me. I have done it all my life." They have never done it. I ask them to think it over. They do not think it over. I tell them, “You can make use of all the time you spend when you are unable to go to sleep by thinking how you can please someone, and it will be a big step forward in your health." When I see them next day, I ask them, “Did you think over what I suggested?” They answer, “Last night I went to sleep as soon as I got into bed." All this must be done, of course, in a modest, friendly manner, without a hint of superiority.

  Others will answer, “I could never do it. I am so worried." I tell them, “Don't stop worrying; but at the same time you can think now and then of others." I want to direct their interest always towards their fellows. Many say, “Why should I please others? Others do not try to please me." "You must think of your health”, I answer. "The others will suffer later on." It is extremely rarely that I have found a patient who said, “I have thought over what you suggested." All my efforts are devoted towards increasing the social interest of the patient. I know that the real reason for his malady is his lack of cooperation and I want him to see it too. As soon as he can connect himself with his fellow men on an equal and cooperative footing, he is cured.

  Another clear example of a lack of social interest is the so-called "criminal negligence." A man lets a lighted match fall and starts a forest fire. Or, as in a recent case, a worker leaves a cable stretched across a road when he goes home for the day; an automobile runs into it and the occupants are killed. In neither case did the individual mean any harm. He does not seem to be guilty in a moral sense for the actual disaster. But he has not been trained in thinking of other people; he does not spontaneously take precautions to secure their safety. It is a higher degree of the same lack of cooperation that we see in untidy children and in people who stand on other people's toes, break dishes and plates, or knock ornaments off the mantelshelf.

  Interest in our fellow men is trained in the home and the school; and we have seen already what
hindrances may be put in the way of a child's development. Social feeling is not, perhaps, an inherited instinct; but the potentiality for social feeling is inherited. This potentiality is developed in accordance with the mother's skill and her interest in the child, and in accordance with the child's own judgment of his environment. If he feels that other people are hostile, if he feels that he is surrounded by enemies and has his back against the wall, we cannot expect him to make friends and to be a good friend himself. If he feels that others should be his slaves, he will wish, not to contribute to others, but to rule them. If he is interested in his own sensations and in his physical irritations and discomforts, he will shut himself off from society.

  We have seen how it is best for a child to feel himself an equal part of his family and to take an interest in all the other members. We have seen that the parents should themselves be good friends to each other and should have good and intimate friendships in the outer world. In this way their children come to feel that trustworthy human beings exist outside the family, also. We have seen how, in the school, the child should feel himself a part of the class, a friend to the other children and able to rely on their friendship. Life in the family and life at school are preparations for a larger whole. Their aim is to educate the child to be a fellow man, an equal part of the whole of mankind. Only in these conditions will he preserve his courage and meet the problems of life without tension, finding solutions for them which increase the welfare of others.