It is one of the most effective attitudes of the neurotic to measure thumbs down, so to speak, a real person by an ideal, since in doing so he can depreciate him as much as he wishes.

Hillsdale NJ: Analytic Press. The desires of the self ideal were countered by social and ethical demands. A transient partner of your own sex is a better known road and requires less courage than a permanent contact with an "unknown" sex.

Adler was the first to emphasize the importance of the social element in the re-adjustment process of the individual and who carried psychiatry into the community. His emphasis on the importance of feelings of inferiority - the inferiority complex - is recognized as isolating an element which plays a key role in personality development. Adler (February 7 1870 – May 28 1937) was an Austrian medical doctor psychotherapist and founder of the school of individual psychology.