Part II    Psychodynamic Theories86
notes of a composition are meaningless without the entire melody, but the melody 
takes on added significance when we recognize the composer’s style or unique manner 
of expression.
A person’s style of life is fairly well established by age 4 or 5. After that time, 
all our actions revolve around our unified style of life. Although the final goal is sin -
gular, style of life need not be narrow or rigid. Psychologically unhealthy individuals 
often lead rather inflexible lives that are marked by an inability to choose new ways of 
reacting to their environment. In contrast, psychologically healthy people behave in 
diverse and flexible ways with styles of life that are complex, enriched, and changing. 
Healthy people see many ways of striving for success and continually seek to create 
new options for themselves. Even though their final goal remains constant, the way 
in which they perceive it continually changes. Thus, they can choose new options at 
any point in life.
People with a healthy, socially useful style of life express their social inter -
est through action.  They actively struggle to solve what Adler regarded as the three 
major problems of life—neighborly love, sexual love, and occupation—and they do so 
through cooperation, personal courage, and a willingness to make a contribution to 
the welfare of another. Adler (1956) believed that people with a socially useful style 
of life represent the highest form of humanity in the evolutionary process and are 
likely to populate the world of the future.
Creative Power
The final tenet of Adlerian theory is: Style of life is molded by people’s creative power.
Each person, Adler believed, is empowered with the freedom to create her or 
his own style of life. Ultimately, all people are responsible for who they are and how 
they behave. Their creative power  places them in control of their own lives, is respon -
sible for their final goal, determines their method of striving for that goal, and contrib -
utes to the development of social interest. In short, creative power makes each person 
a free individual. Creative power is a dynamic concept implying movement, and this 
movement is the most salient characteristic of life. All psychic life involves movement 
toward a goal, movement with a direction (Adler, 1964).
Adler (1956) acknowledged the importance of heredity and environment in 
forming personality. Except for identical twins, every child is born with a unique 
genetic makeup and soon comes to have social experiences different from those of 
any other human. People, however, are much more than a product of heredity and 
environment. They are creative beings who not only react to their environment but 
also act on it and cause it to react to them.
Each person uses heredity and environment as the bricks and mortar to build 
personality, but the architectural design reflects that person’s own style. Of primary 
importance is not what people have been given, but how they put those materials to 
use. The building materials of personality are secondary. We are our own architect 
and can build either a useful or a useless style of life. We can choose to construct a 
gaudy façade or to expose the essence of the structure. We are not compelled to grow 
in the direction of social interest, inasmuch as we have no inner nature that forces us 
to be good. Conversely, we have no inherently evil nature from which we must escape. 
We are who we are because of the use we have made of our bricks and mortar.
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