All About Inferiority Complex: Definition, Health Effects, and How to Cope

We all worry at times about our abilities. Although it’s distressing, it’s normal to question whether we measure up to others or to feel momentarily incompetent for, say, scoring lower on a test than those around us, not performing as well as our coworkers, or for not yet being as well-situated in life as our friends. Most people are able to move on from these incidents fairly quickly, but some are so caught up in deeply rooted feelings of inferiority that their self-doubt becomes debilitating.

What Is Inferiority Complex?

First introduced in 1907 by Austrian physician and psychotherapist Alfred Adler, inferiority complex is defined by the American Psychological Association as a basic feeling of inadequacy and insecurity that can lead to behaviors ranging from withdrawal (rooted in fear and shyness) to excessive competition and aggression as a way to overcompensate. The feeling could be rooted in a real physical or psychological deficiency, or an imagined one.

Importantly, inferiority complex is different from occasional feelings of inferiority. For most of us, these feelings are highly situational or occasional — like not making the team, being unhappy with your relationship status, or watching friends hit certain life milestones that aren’t happening for you right now. When they arise, you may brood about them for a time and then move on, deal with them by reminding yourself that you have other strengths, or use them as motivation to master the underlying problem, says James E. Maddux, PhD, psychologist and author of Subjective Well-Being and Life Satisfaction and coauthor of Psychopathology: Foundations for a Contemporary Understanding.

Even when major events cause our self-doubt to flare — being fired from a job or being dumped by a romantic partner — most people are able to turn to friends and family and eventually find other ways to feel secure, engaged, and productive.

But if you have an inferiority complex — which Dr. Maddux says is an old-fashioned term for what clinicians now call chronic low self-esteem — you respond differently. You call yourself names, lament your shortcomings, and believe that your intense self-criticism is reasonable. Just when your self-esteem is most fragile, you attack it even further. This cycle is so deeply rooted that it consistently holds you back personally and professionally.

It’s different from the phenomenon known as impostor syndrome, which, according to the American Psychological Association, typically refers to highly accomplished individuals who believe they don’t deserve their success. Generally, impostor syndrome is situational — for example, low self-esteem at work or at school — whereas inferiority complex is marked by low self-esteem across all aspects of your life.

The good news is there are things you can do to curb these unhealthy responses, overcome your psychological distress, rebuild your self-esteem, and enjoy a more fulfilling life, Maddux says.

Research suggests that the behavioral and psychological characteristics associated with an inferiority complex arise from a combination of factors, including:

Genetic Predisposition

A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that people who inherited a variation in the receptor for oxytocin, a hormone that contributes to positive emotions, felt less optimistic, had lower self-esteem, and felt less personal mastery than people who inherited a different type of receptor for oxytocin.

Family of Origin

According to Maddux, who has studied self-esteem for decades, your early caregivers can have an enormous impact on whether a genetic tendency toward self-doubt is “exacerbated” or “softened.” A child whose highly critical parent repeatedly says things like “You’re stupid,” “You’re a klutz,” or “You never do anything right” may internalize those admonishments so completely that they carry them into adulthood.

“When you are very young and impressionable and faced with constant criticism, you feel powerless, worthless, ashamed, shy, and unenthusiastic most of the time,” explains psychologist Elaine N. Aron, PhD, author of The Undervalued Self. “Feeling that it all must be your fault, you undervalue yourself chronically.”

Society

Unrealistic standards coming from advertisers, social media, celebrities, and other figures of authority can create or reinforce perceptions about one’s self that lead to enormous self-doubt. “When society bombards us with messages about how we should act, what we should acquire, and about what type, size, and color our bodies should be, we internalize and feel diminished to such an extent that it affects our own assessment of who we are and what our real worth is,” says Caren Shapiro, a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist in private practice in New York City.

“People who have very low self-esteem tend to compare themselves more with others,” notes Amy Flowers, PhD, a psychologist and cognitive behavioral therapist in private practice in Macon, Georgia. “And when they compare themselves, they compare themselves only to the most successful people.”

A study published in Scientific Reports analyzed social media posts that indicated feelings of inferiority, and found that comparison in social interactions and romantic relationships were two of the major causes of inferiority noted in these posts.

Inferiority complex can manifest differently among people, although low self-esteem and persistent self-doubt are always at the root. Some common signs and symptoms include:

Focusing on the Negative

Whereas someone with a healthy amount of self-esteem is able to move past setbacks, bad experiences, and negative emotions in a reasonable amount of time, someone with an inferiority complex will continuously dwell on them, and can get stuck in a self-defeating pattern.

“You get what you expect and people with very low self-esteem expect very little,” Dr. Flowers says. “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.” As disappointments mount, you become more discouraged and more vulnerable to being biased against yourself. The result is a pervasive feeling of being “less than” across most aspects of life: psychological, intellectual, social, and physical.

Shutting Down or Withdrawing

It’s normal to want to curl up on the couch after a particularly bad day, but those with an inferiority complex will regularly shut down out of shame, guilt, embarrassment, or an inward sense of defeat.

In fact, someone with an inferiority complex might avoid social situations altogether, for fear that they’ll never measure up to those around them, says David Tzall, PsyD, a psychologist based in New York City. This leads to social isolation, which can make self-esteem even worse.

Demeaning Others

Some people with inferiority complex will overcompensate for their own feelings of insufficiency by being overly competitive or overly critical of others, and may simultaneously have what’s called a superiority complex.

“A superiority complex is characterized by an exaggerated sense of one's own abilities, achievements, or importance,” Dr. Tzall says. “Individuals with a superiority complex tend to overestimate their capabilities and often believe they are better or more important than others. They may seek to assert their dominance, belittle others, or display an attitude of condescension.”

Avoiding Competition

On the flip side, other people with an inferiority complex might go out of their way to avoid any situation where their efforts might be directly compared with others. “People with very low self-esteem don’t take risks,” Flowers says. “They don’t try things and they end up missing out on many opportunities.”

In some cases, people who continually see themselves as being lesser than those around them or as failing to meet societal standards may experience high psychological distress. This distress, paired with challenges in employing effective coping strategies, can lead to self-harming behaviors (such as cutting and substance abuse) or suicidality, notes Maddux.

A study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry found that low self-esteem was associated with a greater risk for depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation, and a lower overall quality of life among a sample of teenagers.

The link with depression is particularly strong. A large-scale meta-analysis of 77 prior studies published in the journal Psychological Bulletin showed that low self-esteem is a key factor in the development of depression.

In addition to depression and anxiety, low self-esteem is often associated with eating disorders. Negative feelings about body image contribute to eating disorders, which an estimated 30 million Americans (including 10 million boys and men) experience at some point in their lives, according to the National Eating Disorders Association.

Although an inferiority complex is often deeply rooted, it’s possible to manage and overcome symptoms. Treatment today usually involves some combination of the following approaches:

Psychodynamic Therapy, or Talk Therapy

According to the American Psychiatric Association, “Most people who receive psychotherapy experience relief and are better able to function in their lives.”

To get the most help out of psychotherapy for chronic low self-esteem, “The first step is to develop a really deep understanding of where this feeling of diminishment is coming from by delving into the messaging that came early in life and exploring the situations that reinforced the feeling of not being good enough,” says Shapiro. “Next, we help shift the focus away from what they lack to the positive things about themselves and their lives. Once we, so to speak, even out the playing field, we can then, from a position of positive self-regard, repair their sense of self-confidence and self-esteem.”

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

One specific type of talk therapy that has been shown to work for overcoming low self-esteem is CBT. “There is tons and tons of evidence of the effectiveness of CBT,” says Maddux. “What CBT does is, in a very structured way, teaches people to examine the negative thoughts and feelings they’re having in the moment and gradually change them over time by checking their validity. ‘Am I really a totally incompetent person who never does anything right, or is that a cognitive distortion?’”

Cognitive distortions are thought patterns that erode self-esteem. According to Mayo Clinic, these include:

• All-or-Nothing Thinking You see things as either all good or all bad. For example, “I'm a total failure because it took me more time than I said it would to write this report.”
• Mental Filtering By focusing only on the negatives, you distort your view of yourself. For example, “If I’m late to the meeting, everyone will know that I'm a loser.”
• Converting Positives Into Negatives You undervalue your successes and compliments. For example, “I only got the job because no one else wanted it.” “A person with chronic low self-esteem has learned to filter their successes out, to undervalue them time and time again,” Maddux says.
• Jumping to Negative Conclusions You reach a negative conclusion when little or no evidence supports it. For example, “My coworker went to lunch without me, so she must be mad at me.”
• Mistaking Feelings for Facts You confuse feelings or beliefs with facts. For example, “I don’t think I’m attractive, so I must be ugly.”

Keeping a ‘Victory File’

According to Flowers, self-esteem is created and strengthened by two factors: setting goals and accomplishing them, and having evidence that others love and care about you.

“In my practice, I encourage people to keep a ‘victory file’ that includes all the evidence you have of achieving goals and people doing something that shows they care about you,” Flowers says. For example, if you plan to go to the gym three times a week and you do it, write it down and put it in the file. If someone sends you a nice birthday card, put it in the victory file. Then when you’re feeling down on yourself, you can look through the file and see proof of your accomplishments and your relationships. A gratitude journal can be similarly helpful, Flowers says.

Medication

When someone has low self-esteem along with certain psychological conditions, such as severe anxiety or depression, medication may be warranted. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of American, options include antidepressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), which increase the levels of mood-lifting hormones in the brain by preventing their reabsorption by neurons.