ABSTRACT
One of the basic tenets in Adlerian theory is the dynamic of inferiority. Adler often wrote of it as one’s “sense” of being in a “minus” position. As the individual comes into this world, the child is in a position of being helpless and incapable. Although this is common for all newborns and infants, the nature of the situation contributes to a sense of being “less than.” The inferiority feeling is a self-comparison (Adler, 1956, 1964; Dreikurs, 1954, 1967) made from the time infants are able to interact with those around them (Adler, 1956). Inhabiting the infant’s world are “creatures” with greater skills and resources. It appears to the child that everyone is bigger, better, faster, smarter, or more adept. Thus, the individual begins life dependent on everyone else for mere survival; “to be a human being means to possess a feeling of inferiority which constantly presses towards its own conquest” (Adler, 1964, p. 116). Therefore, we begin life from a position of “felt minus.”
