Political Personalities: Benjamin Rush Research Paper Sample

Benjamin Rush was a professional physician and political leader who took part in 1776’s American Revolution. Benjamin together with other intellectuals Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin strongly believed that freedom should be all and therefore fought to eradicate slavery in American in 1770. This paper will keenly examine Benjamin Rush’s life by using Adler’s theory, ‘The Practice and Theory of Individual Psychology’. Adler is a renowned psychiatrist and a philosopher who deeply studied individuals from a social perspective (Roeckelein, 1998). This piece collects Benjamin’s style of life, how he attained superiority striving and his weakness based on Adler’s Theory. It further focuses on the aspects of birth order and how this affected Benjamin’s personality.

Superiority Striving

Dr. Rush, during his earlier ages in 1760, he, together with his mother attended Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. At the age of seven, his father dead and they were living in poverty. Gilbert Tennent, a church minister, was there to encourage and instill Presbyterian doctrines (Pangle, 1988). It dawned to Benjamin, and he started to discover that people fail because of, ‘irregular convulsive or wrong action’. Indeed, he started fighting against the inner feeling of failure. He perceived failure or inferiority as failing to maximize potentials. It through this intrinsic motivation prompted him to join the school of medicine, Edinburgh University. After school, Dr. Rush a feeling and a desire of improving health services for the betterment of the community. In his services, he discovered a gap that was beyond his career; there was a need of setting people free and the abolition of slavery. It forced him to join other intellectuals in the fight against colonists with an inner desire of making freedom available for all. Due to this social reason, he joined politics where he joined the army. He managed to hit high levels of his superiority striving when he served in the medical department in Army during wars against colonialists.
Dr. Rush lived a unique life which was different from what other politicians and physicians did. In his career, he went beyond personal benefits and focused on social needs. Ignited by his concern for social needs, he came up with three dispensaries that aided in the fight against yellow fever in 1793. These dispensaries provided free services. Unlike other physicians, he indulged in extensive research despite the criticism. He advocated for blood-transfusion to aid those injured in the fight. When he moved o politics, his goals were; create effective and more liberal constitution, individuals to access freedom and boost education levels in his country. To the large extent, Dr. Rush was concerned with the well-being of people than to him (Pangle, 1988). That is why Benjamin sacrificed his resources to undertake research and build dispensaries, joined the army as a doctor and moved into politics with clear goals of claiming independence, allowing citizens access quality educations and good health.

Birth order

Notably, Dr. Rush was the fourth child out of seven children in his family. Idler’s theory advocates that middle born children have mixed personalities, and they strive to receive attention from their parents or elderly people (Roeckelein, 1998). It might be the reason why Dr. Rush became the most influential person in his family and in the community.
Idler’s theory is applicable in many ways. First, the theory suggests that striving to fight the inferiority makes a person achieve his goals. It can be used by individuals who really want to achieve their goals, build personality and understand their image on how perfect-perfect looks like.

References

Pangle, T. L. (1988). The spirit of modern republicanism: The moral vision of the American founders and the philosophy of Locke. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Roeckelein, J. E. (1998). Dictionary of theories, laws, and concepts in psychology. Westport, Conn: Greenwood.
Roeckelein, J. E., & Ebooks Corporation. (2006). Elsevier's dictionary of psychological theories. Amsterdam: Elsevier.