Through 'inferiority complex - desire for recognition - vanity'
Finding the true human heart!

A complete translation of Adler's masterpiece, "Menschenkenntnis," considered one of the three greatest masters of world psychoanalysis!
The book that approaches Adler's psychology most closely without any translation or reinterpretation!
A separate 'Translator's Note' explaining individual psychology in an easy-to-understand way is also included!

“Fate lies in the heart of man!” _ Herodotus (Greek historian)
Beyond the study of ‘understanding’ human nature
A practical psychology book that can be applied directly to our lives.

A translation of Alfred Adler's masterpiece, Menschenkenntnis (1927), a masterpiece of world psychoanalysis and the founder of individual psychology, by an expert who majored in psychology and German literature, has been published by Eulyoo Publishing.
This book is based on Adler's lectures at a Vienna civic university in 1908, and explains individual psychology in detail with various examples.
That is, it goes beyond mere academic theory and reveals how individual psychology can be applied in everyday life and what meaning it has in interactions with people and in life.
Here, the translator added an easy-to-understand explanation of individual psychology centered on the keywords 'inferiority complex - desire for recognition - vanity', thereby enhancing the reader's understanding.

Adler tells people who are confused about why various emotions such as inferiority complex, jealousy, vanity, anger, hatred, helplessness, anxiety, and timidity arise in their minds exactly where they are going wrong.
And it emphasizes community awareness and education as a way to correct errors in the mind.
Through this book, we will be able to understand human beings and at the same time learn for ourselves how to structure our lives in social relationships and how to govern our minds.

What we want is not to construct a utopia of his mental development.
For someone who is feeling lost and confused, just having a new perspective can be incredibly helpful.
Because from this new perspective, it becomes clear in which direction he went wrong.
From our perspective, the strict determinist view that regards all human activities as a series of causes and effects is not entirely wrong.
For it is certain that when there is still some power and some motivation alive in the human mind, that is, when self-awareness is working, the result of an experience becomes entirely different, and the theory of results acquires new value.
When a person becomes aware of what is happening within him and what causes it, his self-awareness will be greatly enhanced, he will become a completely different person, and he will never again give up on himself.
--- p.29

The desire to dominate others is determined by the size of one's sense of community.
Whether as a child or an adult, one cannot properly judge a person without comparing his or her drive for power and his or her sense of community to that of superiority over others.
Goals serve to elevate one's character to the point where achieving them gives one a sense of superiority or makes one feel that life is worth living.
This goal also values ​​our emotions, regulates our perceptions, and influences them.
It is the goal that directs our imagination and takes charge of all this, including deciding what we should remember and what we should forget.
We must remember that our feelings are not absolute and are influenced by our actions in pursuing the goals that fill our mental life.
If we further consider that our perceptions are always selective, guided by a certain secret purpose, and that our imagination, too, has no absolute value, but is influenced by this goal, and that in every experience we single out only those aspects that seem appropriate to us, and that we constantly keep our eyes on our goal, we will understand that all this is relative, and that only the illusion of certain and secure values ​​remains.
--- p.96

A twenty-five-year-old young man was about to take his final exam.
But then I suddenly felt like I had lost interest in everything in the world, and I gave up on the exam.
He was plagued by self-reproach and the feeling of being incompetent, driven by the pain of all kinds of accusations.
When I think back to my childhood, I feel a strong resentment towards my parents, as if they had hindered my development by not understanding me.
He thought that humans were originally worthless beings.
In that thought, he eventually became isolated from the world.
There is a hidden motive at work here: vanity, which seeks excuses and pretexts to avoid being put to the test.
Because this thought came to him just before the exam, and it turned into stage fright (Lampenfieber), which made him helpless and felt extremely uncomfortable.
All of this had a decisive meaning to him.
Because he can save his pride even if he can't do everything now.
That is, he had a life jacket that made it impossible to blame him.
He could find solace in that, for he was now sick and helpless from a dark fate.
Another form of vanity is hidden in a person's reluctance to reveal himself.
It serves as a turning point in the decisive moment when he must demonstrate his abilities.
He doubted his own abilities, thinking of the glory he would lose if he failed the test.
This is the secret of all those who hesitate to make a decision at the crucial moment.

--- p.251~252

For a long time, I had difficulty understanding the phenomenon of emotions until I realized that emotions are a means by which we can overcome feelings of inferiority without delay in order to satisfy our need for recognition.
Emotional readiness and attitude have been used very widely in human psychological life.
A child who feels ignored will become angry, sad, or cry, and then realize that this method is effective.
Then, even if something very small happens, you will adopt this attitude and apply the method of using your emotions to benefit from it.
Now, using emotions will become automatic and will become an increasingly abnormal habit.
This emotional abuse continues to occur regularly throughout adult life, leading to worthless and harmful behavior.

--- p.337