Alexandra Adler was born in Vienna, the daughter of the distinguished psychiatrist Alfred Adler. She studied at the University of Vienna and graduated as Doctor of Medicine in 1926. Following her father’s she became an expert in individual psychology. After her graduation and internship, she was a resident and visiting physician at the Neuropsychiatric Clinic of the University of Vienna until 1935. She was also editor of International Zeitschrift Individualpsychoterapie.
Adler left Vienna for the USA in 1935. She obtained a position as resident fellow assistant and instructor of neurology at the Harvard University School of Medicine, which she held until 1944. She also held positions as assistant in neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, resident associate and senior visiting physician at Boston City Hospital. From 1944 until 1946, she was assistant psychiatrist at the Duke University Hospital, Durham, North Carolina. In 1946 she became faculty member at the New York University as assistant clinical professor of neurology. She was promoted to associate clinical professor in 1953 and clinical professor of psychiatry in 1969. During this period she additionally held positions as member of staff at Bellevue Hospital, New York (1946); from 1946 to 1955 adjunct psychiatrist at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York; and during 1946-1956 she was associate visiting physician at Goldwater Memorial Hospital, New York. In 1948 she was appointed psychiatrist at the Department of Correction, New York and was elected as medical director of the Alfred Adler Mental Hygiene Clinic, New York. She was also editor of the International Journal of Individual Psychology.
Alexandra Adler was recognized as a leading authority in the field of individual psychology with specialty in psychosomatic syndromes and psychopharmacology. She was an authority on schizophrenia, pioneer in the study of post-traumatic stress disorder, and one of the first women neurologists at Harvard. She was a member and elected president of the New York Association of Individual Psychology; a member of the International Association of Individual Psychology, the American Psychiatric Association, American Academy of Neurology; and Assistant for Research of Nervous and Mental Diseases.
In 1978, Alexandra Adler received the Golden Cross of Honor of the City of Vienna.
She died at the age of 99 in New York in 2001