Early rickets “impeded his movements and made him heavy dur ing his childhood.” “A mild form of spasm of his vocal cords. His physical health in childhood has been described fully. According to Carl Furtmüller, “early experiences made him unable to feel the difference between Jews and Gentiles as something personally important.” During the periodic waves of anti-Semitism which swept the country during Adler’s formative years, his family enjoyed peace, for the old cliché, “Some of my best friends are Jews,” was seemingly re spected. In the 1870s the Jews of Vienna had a choice of where they might live: either in voluntary ghettoes, which Adler’s father declined or in primarily Gentile neighborhoods. Above all, he recognized in the frail, fearful boy he himself had been the key to his theory: an individual strives toward a personal goal his attempts to over come his inadequacies should be a healthy means of fulfilling life.

He recognized the justness of equality for women. Destined to become one of the century’s leading social scientists, the founder of a provocative and widely accepted school of psy chology, he drew on his family to illustrate the concept of social interest and the significance of birth order.

This unremarkable family, in the indirect ways Adler later posited, led Adler to formulate important theories.

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