SOURCE: A review of Understanding Human Nature, in American Journal of Sociology, Vol. XXXIV, No. 2, September, 1928, pp. 391-93.

In the following review, Blumer provides an assessment of three Adlerian themes: the inferiority feeling, the life-pattern, and the nature of character.

Of all psychiatrists Dr. Adler seems to be most akin to sociologists in spirit and perspective. In earlier works he has shown a keen appreciation of the rôle of social relations in personal development; in [Understanding Human Nature], which is constructed out of a series of popular lectures, we have the simplest and clearest picture of these views.

Amid a wealth of varied and valuable discussion his central theses are easily isolated. They are essentially three: the basic importance of the inferiority feeling, the presence in each of us of a life-pattern, and the appearance of character traits as expressions of the life-pattern. The conception of the...