The Surprising Upside of Feeling Inferior

Are you someone who feels inferior? Over the course of a lifetime we all meet our share of setbacks, and there are moments when we feel like failures, doubting our own worth — even as we long to prove, to ourselves and to others, that we really are capable after all. Inferiority might look like a fault, but Alfred Adler, the founder of individual psychology (individual psychology), saw it as one of the driving forces of human nature. Let's take a look at how inferiority can actually help us surpass ourselves.

Inferiority as a source of motivation

Many psychologists have tried to identify the source of human motivation. Freud believed that human behaviour was driven by the sexual desires of the unconscious "id"; Maslow divided human motivation into five levels, holding that our ultimate goal is to reach self-actualisation. Adler, who once studied psychoanalysis alongside Freud before parting ways over differences in their ideas, took the view that the prime mover of human behaviour is the drive to overcome feelings of inferiority. Adler believed that everyone experiences feelings of inferiority. Those feelings can arise from many sources — family relationships, friendships, society and culture, economic standing, and more. He went further, arguing that from the moment we are born, faced with the authority of our parents or carers, we already feel inferior because of our own helplessness. Although in everyday language inferiority usually carries a negative connotation, Adler saw it as a state that every single person passes through — and as a kind of fuel that pushes people to progress.

Most of us would assume that what springs from inferiority is largely negative emotion, and that no one enjoys feeling inferior. Because everyone feels inferior by nature, we naturally take various compensatory actions to overcome that inferiority and pursue a sense of superiority. Take Adler himself: as a child he suffered a serious illness and very nearly died, which left him terrified of death. From then on he resolved to become a doctor, studying diligently and reading medicine to compensate for the inferiority he felt in the face of death. Or consider someone who feels inferior because they are shunned by their peers, and who then, wanting to overcome that sense of powerlessness, discovers their own latent potential and strives upwards in order to conquer the feeling of inferiority. Adler also applied his theory to birth order, pointing out that a second-born child may feel inferior in comparison with the eldest, and that this very inferiority can make them the most driven, competing for the best possible growth. As we can see, inferiority is not necessarily a bad thing: with the right compensatory action it can lead us to grow better and build a healthier outlook.

The inferiority complex and the superiority complex

Just as Freud put forward the "Oedipus complex", Adler proposed two phenomena: the "inferiority complex" and the "superiority complex". Both are psychological phenomena that arise when a person cannot resolve their feelings of inferiority in a healthy way. When we face feelings of inferiority, we can choose different ways to deal with the problem. We might choose to avoid it, passively rationalising our weaknesses and simply letting them be, giving up easily when problems arise — leaving our self-esteem and sense of security extremely low. Adler called this the inferiority complex. The superiority complex, its opposite, is when a person facing intense feelings of inferiority chooses to act with arrogance and to criticise others, gaining self-esteem and building confidence through self-deception. Neither the inferiority complex nor the superiority complex is a healthy, mature form of compensation. And yet, quite a few of us may already show mild signs of one or the other. If you want to know how these difficulties can be improved, why not see what Adler had to suggest?

Changing your state of mind

As a first step in changing ourselves, we can begin by clearly recognising the thoughts and feelings of inferiority within us. If we agree that inferiority has shaped our state of mind, our next step can be to look inward and work out how we usually respond to it. Once we know where our problem lies, we can actively change our attitude, set goals that are both achievable and right for us, and let inferiority become a force that drives us forward rather than a burden that holds us back — changing ourselves from the inside out, and using inferiority to help us surpass ourselves.