growingupworkingclass, beginning with the feelingsofinferiority mentioned in
manyworkers’life writingsand extensivel ydiscussed inmost socialist educa-
tional manuals. Their conclusionthatthese feelings of inferiority hadto be treat-
ed in class-specific terms attests to the considerable influenceofAlfredAdler,
the founder of individual psychologywho, after foundingthe first clinic for
child psychologyinVienna in1920,became actively involved in educationreform
and child advocacy.¹⁶Oneofthe original members of the Psychoanalytic Society,
Adler eventuallybrokewith Freud over the decisive role the latter attributed to
the unconscious and the drives. Adler began developingamore holistic view
of the individual that emphasized his or her unique sense of self and world,
with the experience ofGemeinschaftsgefühltreated as an integral part of this
process. His interest in the social causesofmental and physical illness and
his belief in the improvability of human nature attesttohis intellectual debts
to Enlightenment thought and the modernproject of socialreform.Concerned
with the externaland internal obstaclestoindividual self-realization, Adler
throughout his career paidspecial attention to the problem of low self-esteem
and its long-term consequences.His distinction between the universal human
experience ofMinderwertigkeitsgefühl(feelingofinferiority) and the clinical eti-
ologyofMinderwertigkeitskomplex(inferiority complex) allowed him to develop
the key categories of what became known as individual psychologyinline with
its original commitment toasocialist humanism.Adler was acutelyaware of the
dailyinsults and small resentments that prevented working-class children from
developingastrong sense of community and partaking in the socialist cultureof
solidarity thatcould sustain them through personal struggles.At the same time,
he regarded feelings of inferiority also asapowerful resource in the fight for so-
cial justiceand the rise of the workers’movement–apoint indirectlyconfirmed
by the political memoirsand workers’life writingsdiscussed in chapters3and 7.
Building on the work ofAdler,who waswidelyknown inViennese socialist
circles,socialist educators and children’sactivists used the diagnosis of feelings
of inferiority togaugethe psychological consequences of economic exploitation
and social discrimination. This conceptual opening towardaclass-based under-
standing of emotions enabled them to conceive of therapeutic experiencesof
community tailored specificallytothe needs of working-class children.Karl
Korn, the editor ofArbeiter-Jugend,for example, observedthat one can“mobilize
young people for socialism, but it must beasocialism that takes into account the
The mainworks to be consideredinthis contextare AlfredAdler,Die andereSeite. Eine mas-
senpsychologischeStudie über die Schuld desVolkes(Vienna: Leopold Heidrich, 1919) and the
very influential and frequentlyreprintedMenschenkenntnis(Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1927).
The Emotional Education of the ProletarianChild 277