According to Adlerian theory, the most important concept that motivates or drives human behavior is striving for perfection. He believed this was a universal drive that promoted adaptation, improvement of self and mastery of life’s challenges. Adler believed when we are young we become aware of the ability of older children and adults to be more able than us at myriad things. These feelings of inferiority encourage us to develop and acquire new skills. Instead of physical satisfaction, like Freud, Adler saw this striving for superiority as the main drive or goal of being. Adler argued that we all have feelings of being inferior to others and we are all faced with compensation, the efforts (real or imagined) to develop our own abilities. While Adler believed this process was a valid universal experience for all humans, he also maintained that some individuals manifest an excessive preoccupation with inferiority feelings and develop an inferiority complex. These exaggerated feelings of weakness or inadequacy might also be engendered in individuals from parental neglect and he felt strongly that all neuroses were the attempts of people with inferiority feelings to protect themselves from an existence they felt inadequate to handle. Adler believes that these processes interfere with the striving for perfection drive, by such processes as the development of overcompensating behavior. Within his theory, Adler stressed the significance of socialization and social context where personality development was concerned. This presumption included such aspects of development as birth order and childhood environment. He believed that human nature contains an inherently engendered social interest, an innate sense of kinship and belonging with all humans.
One of the reasons Adler’s theory is well-suited to group therapy is because one function of group therapy is to promote a change of thinking, attitudes and/or behavior through the...