The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler, 100 years on, increasingly rooted in current scientifica research: altruism is innate in man and present in the evolution of all living beings

Paper presented at the 25th Congress of the I.A.I.P. – “Separation, Trauma, Development” – Vienna (Austria), 14-17 Luglio 2011

The full article is available for download in Italian only.

Summary. Two great paths of international scientific research are redefining our knowledge of the complex aspects of sociability in humans and in all species. A century after the brilliant discoveries of Alfred Adler, rigorous experimental research on the part of evolutionary psychologists and, in another context, biologists clearly highlight the presence of sociability as a fundamental factor in the organisation of the species. We refer to rigorous experimental studies on the innate social skills of man that are present from the very first months of life of the baby whose behaviour clearly reveals the ability to sense the presence of others and cooperate. On a wider horizon, there are equally significant studies on symbiogenesis that redefine evolution not just as linked to selection based on survival of the fittest or better adjusted, but also as a process relative to symbiotic cooperation between organisms. In the near future, these studies will redefine scientific theories in biology, but also in psychology and therefore for man and his social aspects. The concept of social sentiment, fundamental in Individual Psychology but to date poorly received in the psychology scientific community, is finally receiving scientific confirmation. Thus another brilliant idea of Alfred Adler can be seen and premonitory and fundamental for psychology as a whole.

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