Adler’s Complexes

Inferiority – the notion that all children experience a sense of helplessness because of their size and dependence on others; this feeling can also be intensified by real or imagined physical defects, social rejection and other factors.
Complex – process of engaging in activities
Inferiority complex – intense feeling of insecurity based on failure to resolve the feelings evoked by childhood experiences of helplessness
Superiority complex – response to feelings of inferiority in which the individual attempts to mask their weakness by adopting an attitude of exaggerated self-importance.

The Superiority Complex
- Refers to a subconscious mechanism of compensation developed by an individual due to feelings of inferiority.
- Usually due to social rejection, an individual's inattentiveness to hygiene, appearance or lower intelligence compared to peers.
- Some individuals who have grown up in backgrounds wheree they have to fulfill high expectations and being successful in doing so may develop a feeling of superioriy towards others. - Individuals who show their superiority complex usually project their own feeligns of inferiority onto others so as to being able to perceive them as beneath themselves. For example, the view others as "ugly" or "stupid" and beneath themselves.

Superiority can also be caused by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The Inferiority Complex
- Feeling inferior to others.
- Arises from an imagined/actual inferiority in the person.
- Often subconscious
- Is thought to make individuals to overcompensate, therefore resulting in: spectacular achievement or extreme antisocial behavior.
- Advanced state of discouragement.

Due to:
- Parental attitudes – disapproval and evaluations of the child emphasizing mistakes
- Physical defects - facial features, speech defects and defective vision.
- Mental limitations - unfavorable comparisons are made with the superior achievers.
- Social disadvantages - family, race, sex or economic status

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_complex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferiority_complex

Images:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/DrAlfredAdler.jpg/431px-DrAlfredAdler.jpg