What It Really Means To Have An “Inferiority Complex” + Signs To Look For

“An inferiority complex is an intense feeling of personal inadequacy that stems from a belief that the person is deficient or has certain limitations as compared to others,” explains board-certified psychiatrist Nereida Gonzalez-Berrios, M.D..

People with this complex often compare themselves with others and consistently believe that they are not good enough, she says. “This is an erroneous belief that the person possesses that can affect mental well-being and social life. They feel that they will not be able to cope with certain aspects of their life because of some real or imagined physical or psychological deficiency.”

The thought of imminent failure can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, because a person struggling with an inferiority complex may completely disregard their positive qualities and self-sabotage.

The term inferiority complex was coined in 1907 by Austrian psychoanalyst Alfred Adler, who believed that the conscious or subconscious overcompensation for these feelings of inadequacy led to many other mental and emotional conditions. Adler posited that everyone was motivated to define and achieve their own sense of fulfillment, but to reach that desired point, we all must balance between cooperating with others (family, classmates, co-workers, and society at large) and striving for greater things. When these elements are off-balance, he posited that it could result in either an inferiority complex, a tendency to over-accommodate and to underestimate our value in comparison to others—or a superiority complex, a pattern of behavior that assumes that a person’s abilities and accomplishments are far better than others’. 

In the 90 years since Adler first defined the term, our notion of an inferiority complex has evolved. Today, mental health professionals recognize inferiority and superiority complexes as different sides of the same coin, with superiority complexes typically a cover-up for an inferiority complex. According to Arash Javanbakht, M.D., a psychiatrist and director of the Stress, Trauma & Anxiety Research Clinic at Wayne State University, the term “inferiority complex” is no longer in use in clinical diagnostics either. That said, “extremely low self-esteem, which is not founded in truth or a reasonable cause, is not good—it’s never normal. I would always see it as pathological.”

To figure out if your feelings of self-doubt would be what Adler considered an inferiority complex, it is important to look into the root causes behind the feelings of inadequacy. Javanbakht says that extremely low self-esteem could be correlated with clinical depression or anxiety, which can be treated with talk therapy or medication.