Alfred Adler was born in Vienna, Austria on February 7, 1870. During the early decades of this century he originated the ideas which, to a large extent, have been incorporated in the mainstream of present-day theory and practice of psychology and psychopathology.

The second of six children, Adler spent his childhood in the suburbs of Vienna. He remembered that when he was about 5 years old, gravely ill with pneumonia, the physician told his father that he doubted the child would recover. It was at that time that Alfred decided he wanted to become a doctor so that he might be able to fight deadly diseases. He never changed his mind, and in 1895 he acquired his M.D. degree at the University of Vienna.

In 1912 Adler published his book, The Neurotic Constitution, in which he further developed his main concepts. He called his psychologic system "Individual Psychology," a term which is sometimes misunderstood. It refers to the indivisibility of the personality in its psychologic structure. His next book, Understanding Human Nature, which comprises lectures given at the Viennese Institute for Adult Education, is still on the required-reading list of some American high schools.

In 1926 Adler was invited to lecture at Columbia University, and from 1932 on he held the first chair of Visiting Professor of Medical Psychology at Long Island College of Medicine. During these and the following years he spent only the summer months, from May to October, in Vienna, and the academic year lecturing in the States. His family joined him there in 1935.

Adler's lectures were overcrowded from the beginning, and he communicated as easily with his audiences in English as he did when using his native German tongue.

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