"Spectator " Conference for Personal Problems
The Inferiority Complex
[The " Spectator " Conference offers to readers a service of advice on personal problems on which they would like impartial help. The Editor has appointed a Committee composed of two medical psychologists (one man and one woman), the chief pathologist of a London hospital, the head-mistress of a large elementary school, and a priest of the Church of England. All questions are referred to them in common. Readers' inquiries, which are dealt with in strict confidence, should be addressed to the Conference on Personal Problems, c/o The "Spectator," 13 York Street, Covent Garden, W.C. 2.]
SINCE last week we have been asked many questions on the " Inferiority Complex." Some correspondents have suspected themselves of the malady, some have suspected their friends. An explanation of the term will perhaps be useful. When we say that a man has an " inferiority complex," we mean no more than that he feels himself inadequate to face the problems of life. It is true that we mean it with great precision : an individual has his own, quite personal system of things he thinks beyond him. If we can find the key to the whole system, we can put him in the way of facing the whole of life with courage and confidence.
Every man alive has an inferiority complex. A complex is not a monstrosity. When ideas, or experiences, arc felt to have a common quality, or when they produce in us the same emotional response, they form part of a complex. If a man, when he passes a hay-cart, remembers a field he knew in his childhood, the experience has touched a complex into which his previous experience also enters. If we are afraid in the same way of snakes, railway accidents, and motor-horns, these three are linked together in a complex. The whole series of experiences in which we feel overshadowed, or incom- petent, or dubious of our own value defines our special inferi- ority complex.
The word is used most frequently, however, when emotional responses seem unreasonably violent and when a man fails to understand his own reactions. In such a case it seems as if his feelings had got out of hand ; they dictate his actions and he is helpless before them. So, too, with the feelings of inferiority. It is quite normal to feel, on occasion, outshone by other people ; or to regret that our activities are not alto- gether perfect, resplendent and unique. When the sense of helplessness is very severe, however, a man will find his imper- fection quite intolerable. He will grow confused or angry if he is contradicted. He will look all around him for evidence that he is neglected or under-rated. A small task will seem to him huge and hopeless. There are people who spend a whole hour putting on a sock or buttoning a coat because they feel the world is so full of difficulties.
Where a man has this restless feeling of being incompetent, lie builds a picture of himself as supremely successful and he demands that people should take him on this valuation. It is sadly frequent amongst married people to find that each partner is trying to assure himself of his superiority at the expense of the other. The husband is always trying to impress on his wife that he is bigger, manlier, and more important than she imagines ; she, for her part, is occupied in proving to him that his assertions about himself are quite untrue. Under these circumstances, when two people are trying to keep up their prestige in the eyes of each other, the marriage cannot fail to be unhappy and even disastrous. It sometimes happens that the man can only keep up his own sense of importance by showing what a nuisance he might be if he chose. The father
of a family who has other people economically dependent on him will sometimes use his position to get everyone terrified
lest he should fall ill or be put out of humour or refuse to go on earning money for the family. In the same way a wife may cultivate headaches or palpitations merely in order to become the most important person in the household.
We may say that neurosis consists in the feeling that no effort will do any good. The neurotic imagines that he is always being defeated. When he is faced with a situation which demands that he should make an additional call on his powers, he considers that he is sure to fail and falls back on melancholy brooding. Where this discouragement is highly marked he looks only to his present inability. He demands immediate success, and he is afraid that if he goes through the process of trial and error he will never be able to reach his end. He wishes to have everything at a blow ; failure is so poignant that he feels success must be guaranteed or he will do nothing.
The wisdom of life must be learned at the risk of frequent failure. It is a great help to realize that every other human being suffers in the same way as ourselves from a sense of imperfection. Even when we see a man apparently full of arrogance and self-assertion, we can easily prove that behind his impervious front there is a very feeble and tremulous soul, lamenting for its own inadequacy.
It was Dr. Alfred Adler who first drew attention to the inferiority complex and traced its origins. Behind the adult who faces the crisis of his life without confidence we shall always find a discouraged and over-sensitive childhood. Individuals who were unhappy as children often continue to live as if they still feared the frowns of their parents ; or as if they still inhabited a world where everyone was stronger, more experienced and more capable than they. The sense of inadequacy is always the relic of an infantile judgment which no longer holds good.
The fear of defeat shows itself in two ways. The first is the development of an aggressive character. The aggres- sive man is perpetually guarding against encroachment on his personality or perpetually trying to get his blow in first : he looks on life as a struggle in which he always runs the risk of being worsted, and needs a host of small triumphs to assure him of his worth. In all his human contacts he tries to show himself " master of the situation." Such a man is vain and ambitious ; his ambitions, however, are not directed towards accomplishment but towards recognition. He tries to win a favourable place by means of anger. He is capable of spasmodic effort, but slow continuous work without imme- diate effect soon tires him and makes him feel desperate. In his childhood such a man was obstinate and defiant. lie can only draw attention to his existence by being irreconcilable or by adopting the attitude of the bully among his fellow- children.
The same theme runs through an adaptation in the opposite direction. The individual then withdraws from life and fellowship ; he tries to avoid putting himself in a position where his qualities can be tested. His whole style of living is full of " safety devices " to enable him to escape the impact of reality. He becomes a valetudinarian, is haunted by fears and anxieties. Outwardly he presents a picture of harmless- ness and amiability ; but under his submissive attitude we can find many grudges against his fellows, and he has always a tendency to tyrannize by his very weakness. He may protest that he only wishes to be left alone " ; but in fact he wishes to be left free to play an imperious role, if only to himself, In both these adaptations we can see the " distance " set between the individual and his fellows. This " distance " is a measurement both of the degree of his anti-social feeling and of his original feeling of inferiority. When we meet any especially severe feeling of inadequacy in ourselves or in others, there are two essentials to be borne in mind. First, we can only learn to swim in water ; success comes only by risking failure. Second, it is the result which is important, not the prestige to be gained from it. " In life it makes little difference who is right and who is wrong, since the only thing that counts is the accomplishment of one's purpose, and the contribution-to the lives of others."
ALAN PORTER.
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