Inferiority complex

An enduring sense of personal inadequacy that can shape behavior, relationships, and self-evaluation. In some accounts, people respond by striving to compensate for perceived shortcomings.

Overcompensation: An excessive effort to counterbalance a perceived weakness or insecurity. It describes an exaggerated form of striving associated with perceived inadequacy.
Alfred Adler: An Austrian physician and psychotherapist who founded individual psychology. Adler developed the account of inferiority and compensation that shaped this concept.
Inferiority feeling: A feeling of being less capable, worthy, or significant than others. Adler distinguished ordinary feelings of inferiority from a persistent, limiting complex.
Adlerian therapy: A psychotherapy approach based on Alfred Adler's individual psychology and emphasis on social context and purposeful behavior. It explores discouragement, private beliefs, and patterns of compensation in Adlerian terms.
Self-esteem: A person's overall evaluation of their own worth or value. Persistent inferiority often involves negative judgments of personal worth.
Individual psychology: A psychological approach founded by Alfred Adler that emphasizes social context, goals, and an individual's way of life. The inferiority complex emerged within Adler's broader theory of personality and motivation.
Social anxiety disorder: A mental disorder marked by intense fear of scrutiny or negative evaluation in social situations. Fear of judgment can overlap with inadequacy but is a distinct clinical condition.
Cognitive behavioral therapy: A structured psychotherapy that helps people identify and change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors. It can address self-critical beliefs and avoidance without requiring Adler's theoretical framework.
Social comparison theory: A theory that people evaluate themselves partly by comparing their abilities and opinions with those of others. Comparisons with others can intensify or ease perceived inadequacy.
Organ inferiority: Adler's idea that physical weaknesses can influence psychological development and compensatory striving. Adler's early account of bodily weakness helped form his later psychological theory.

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