In 1902, the Viennese physician Alfred Adler was invited by Sigmund Freud to join the "Wednesday Psychological Society". However, Adler, for whom the pracitcal application of theories was also of major importance, split from the group in order to found his own psychoanalytic school in 1911. Along with the treatment of mental disorders he focussed on preventing them: The counselling centres and outpatients clinics of those times essentially added to Vienna's high reputation in health care. 

In 1912, Adler's major work "The Neurotic Character" was published in which he described his key theses on the dynamics of self-esteem regulation. 

From 1933 on, Adler gradually shifted his working focus to the USA. He died in 1937 in Scotland while on a lecture tour.

Individual Psychology is a legally approved method of psychotherapy in treatment of mental and psychosomatic disorders. Training as a psychoanalyst is offered by he Alfred Adler Institute (AAI), an institution belonging to the Austrian Association for Individual Psychology, in cooperation with the Viennese Circle of Psychoanalysis and Self-Psychology and the University of Vienna. It is a master programme, which lasts 8 semesters and closes with the academic degree "Master of Arts (Continuing Education)". The training is in German. You can find more information about the master programm here: Psychotherapeutisches Fachspezifikum: Individualpsychologie und Selbstpsychologie.

The AAI also holds further training courses in the field of child and adolescent psychotherapy and psychotherapy of adults. You can find more information here: Veranstaltungen.