8 - Adler settles in US; dies on tour of Europe

Up to now: Adler leaves Freud after nine years, to introduce his own approach, Individual Psychology. It gains popularity throughout Europe and then the US, where three lecture tours convince him to settle.

Adler decided to relocate to the US. Raissa refused to join him, since her friends were in Vienna, she did not speak English, and she abhorred American politics. But when Adler took sick and landed in the hospital, Raissa agreed to live in the US and support him during his illness, budt that they spend summers in Vienna.

Adler recovered and kept his promise. When they returned from Austria that Fall they stepped off the boat in New York and were surrounded by reporters who wanted his opinion on many topics. He commented to one reporter on “the foolishness of thinking that women are inferior. Women’s inferiority is a male lie, and repetition of the lie is responsible for women believing it.”

He settled in New York as Professor of Medical Psychology at the Long Island School of Medicine. His approach to understanding personality and treating neurotic behaviors had become increasingly popular. There were now three dozen associations of Individual Psychology worldwide. He spent his time writing, conducting therapy, teaching, and planning or carrying out lecture tours.

In 1936 he created a "grand plan" for an extensive lecture tour of Europe in 1937, to cover six countries in three months. But in the middle of it, one morning he went out for a walk just before a lecture in Aberdeen, Scotland, and collapsed of a heart attack. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

His friend Carl Furtmüller wrote: “A hard worker all his life, Adler labored harder than ever in the years he divided his activities between Europe and America. Year after year he did a full year’s job on each continent. What normally should have been times of vacation became periods of concentrated work for him. There were his numerous courses and lectures, his work at clinics and with private patients, and preparation of a long series of papers and books to be published.”

There have been years of uncertainty about Adler's funeral. No grave has been found. Then, in 2011 (the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Individual Psychology) the Vienna Adlerian Society asked John Clifford, Austrian consul to Scotland, to see if he could locate Adler's ashes. He found them in a casket in a
crematorium in Edinburgh, in a gallery just a few hundred yards behind the Austrian consulate! Adler’s granddaughter, Margot Adler, and her son flew over for ceremonies that marked his interment in Vienna, with a small but loyal group of Adlerians present.

NOTE: From here on I will list and define major concepts of Adlerian psychology. Some are part of our common vocabulary (“inferiority complex,” "sibling rivalry," "reverse psychology," etc.) but you may not realize they come from Adler. And you musty know of group therapy, marriage counseling, family therapy, parenting education... pioneered first by Adler.

If you would like to discuss any of the concepts, email me at bobhk@aol.com. Be sure to put “LEAP TALK” in the subject heading, or I'm likely to delete it, not realizing it’s a request to discuss Adler.

Next time: Concepts of Adlerian Psychology