Alexandra Adler

Alexandra Adler was an Austrian neurologist and the daughter of psychoanalyst Alfred Adler. She has been described as one of the "leading systematizers and interpreters" of Adlerian psychology. In 1937, Adler and Tracy Jackson Putnam conducted a study on a brain of a multiple sclerosis victim. Illustrations from the study are frequently used in medical literature. Adler's detailed studies on 500 survivors of the Cocoanut Grove fire is noted as some of the earliest research on posttraumatic stress disorder. Adler discovered that many of the survivors suffered from unsettled grief, particular changes in personality such as guilt and diminished vitality, and an increase in sleep disturbances and anxiety. Her sister was Socialist activist Valentine Adler.