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In contrast to Freud, who delighted in metapsychological speculation, Alfred Adler opted for theoretical minimalism. Shortly before his death, Adler told Professor Rex Knight, “I have always tried to make my psychology simple. I would perhaps say that all neurosis was vanity, but that might be too simple to be understood” (Manaster, Painter, Deutsch & Overholt, 1977, p. 54).
Although Adler became prominent in the 1920s and 30s as the creator of Individual psychology, he continued to be incensed by references to his having once been a “disciple of Freud.” In “On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement,” Freud (1914) delivered this ad hominem attack on Adler: “I may even speak publicly of the personal motive for his work, since he himself announced it in the presence of a small circle of members of the Vienna group:—‘Do you think it gives me such great pleasure to stand in your shadow my whole life long?’” (p. 51). Protesting against Freud's depiction of him as motivated by vanity, Adler remarked: “My mild rejection, ‘it was no pleasure to stand in his