Erich Fromm: Humanistic Psychoanalysis

Overview of Humanistic Psychoanalysis

-Influenced by Karen Horney, Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx
-Experiencing World War I as an adolescent as well as the rise of the Nazi Part
-A social and culture oriented theory like Horney's theory.
-Humans unlike other animals have been torn away from their prehistoric union with nature and have lost most of
their animalistic instincts but gained a more highly developed brain capable of reasoning, foresight and
imagination.
-Humans are “freaks of nature” because they are distinct from other animals.
-Assumes that the awareness of humans being separated from nature and their animal instincts, contributes to
feelings of loneliness, isolation and homelessness. A feeling referred as “basic anxiety”. To escape from these
feelings, people strive to become reunited with nature.

Fromm’s Basic Assumptions

-Fromm believed that humans have been torn away from their prehistoric union with
nature and left with no powerful instincts to adapt to a changing world.
-But because humans have acquired the ability to reason, they are able to think and be
aware of their isolated condition—a situation Fromm called the human dilemma.
-“Existential Dichotomy” or an Existential Dilemma. It refers to a problem that has no
solution because none of the alternatives it presents is fully satisfactory.
- The human ability to reason can be considered a blessing and a curse because it allows people to survive but it
forces them to attempt to solve basic, unsolvable dichotomies (conflicts).
- Humans cannot escape from these existential dichotomies; they can only react to
these dichotomies relative to their culture and their individual personalities

-Existential Dichotomies-

1.) The first is between life and death

-Self-awareness and reason tell us that we will die
-An attempt that doesn’t alter the fact that our lives end with death
2.) Second is that people are capable of conceptualizing the goal of complete self-realization
-but are aware that life is too short to reach that goal

3.) The third is that people are ultimately alone, yet cannot tolerate isolation
-Aware of themselves as separate individuals but at the same time, believe that their happiness depends on
uniting with their fellow human beings.

Human Needs
-Fromm believed that we have needs that go far beyond the basic, physiological, that people like Freud believe
explains our behavior. These needs that Fromm is referring to is called “human needs”

 Five Human Needs

1.) Relatedness
-The drive for union with another person or persons
-Three basic ways in which a person can relate to the world:
1.) Love-the ability to unite with somebody outside yourself while retaining the separateness and integrity of
one’s own self. Believed that this is the only relatedness that can solve our basic human dilemma.
2.) Submission- searches for people with dominating, power seeking people. Satisfies both partners but
both will suffer from lack of inner strength, freedom and independence.
*Symbiotic Relationship – established between power-seekers and
submissive partners.
3.) Power-search for a submissive partner
 2.) Transcendence
-The urge to rise above a passive and accidental existence.
-People can transcend their passive nature by either creating life or destroying it. Can be pursued through
either positive or negative approaches.
Positive: Creating life and being creative (art, ideas, laws)
Negative: Destroying life and rise above victims.
Malignant aggression- killing for reasons other than survival.

3.) Rootedness
-To feel at home in the world and the feeling of belonging
-When humans evolved as separate species, they realized they lost their home and they are without roots.
The feeling of isolation became unbearable.
-Enables us to grow beyond the security of our mother and establish ties with the outside world. This is a
productive strategy because we reestablish a sense of belongingness.
-Nonproductive strategy is reluctance to move beyond protective security and become fixated.
4.) Sense of Identity
-Capacity to be aware of ourselves as a separate person.
-See ourselves as a unique person and fit into society as an individual
-The drive for a sense of identity is expressed nonproductively as conformity to a group and productively as
individuality.

5.) Frame of Orientation

–A road map or consistent needed to make our way through the world, to understand the world and know
out place in it. Without a goal it is worthless.
–Irrational goals (Productive)
–Rational goals (Nonproductive)

The Burden of Freedom

-Fromm believed that freedom was an aspect of human nature that we either embrace
or escape.
-He described freedom as the greatest problem for most individuals. With freedom, comes an overwhelming sense
of aloneness and an inability to exert individual power
-Historically, as people gained more political freedom, they began to experience more isolation from others and from
the world. As a result, freedom becomes a burden, and people experience basic anxiety, or a feeling of being alone in
the world.

-Three Mechanisms of Escape-

1.) Authoritarianism
-to give up one's independence and to follow an entity greater or more powerful than yourself. By giving up power
to the powerful, we become the powerful and no longer feel alone.

2.) Destructiveness
 -Refers to an attempt to destroy those we perceive as having the power.
-Any process which attempts to eliminate others or the world as a whole to escape freedom. Fromm said that "the
destruction of the world is the last, almost desperate attempt to save myself from being crushed by it.”

3.) Conformity
-surrendering of one’s individuality in order to meet the wishesof others. We change one's ideal self to what is
perceived as the preferred type of personality of society, losing one's true self.

-Positive Freedom-
Fromm believed that all three of these techniques used to overcome our anxiety associated with freedom are
unhealthy. The only healthy technique is to embrace this freedom and express our true selves rather than what we
perceive as giving us power.

Character Orientations
-Personality is reflected in one’s character orientation. Character consists of all the ingrained and acquired
qualities that make an individual unique. It is hard to change.
-People relate to the world in two ways (1) By acquiring and using things (assimilation) (2) By relating to self and
others (socialization)
-Fromm identified four nonproductive strategies that fail to move people closer to positive freedom and self-
realization.

1.) Receptive
-These are people who expect to get what they need if they don't get it immediately, they wait for it.
-They believe that all goods and satisfactions come from outside themselves and that the only way they can
relate to the world is to receive things, including love, knowledge, and material objects.

2.) Exploitative
-They aggressively take what they want rather than passively receiving it
-Manipulates others to get his way.

3.) Hoarding
-Try to save what they have already obtained, including their feelings, opinions and material obsessions.
-Avoids disposing of any of their possessions
-Likes to have something, not necessarily use it.

4.) Marketing
-See themselves as commodities and value themselves on their ability to sell themselves
-A person's sense of his or her own value always depends the fickle judgment of the market about the person's
value.

5.) Productive
-Psychologically healthy people work toward positive freedom
-This orientation involves 3 dimensions working, loving, and reasoning from your center, in a way that respects
both your needs and those of others.
-Productive love necessitates a passionate love of all life (biophilia)

Personality Disorders
-Personality Disorders are marked by problems in these three areas, work, love,
and thought, and especially in love. Psychologically disturbed people are
incapable of love and have failed to establish union with others.

1.) Necrophilia
-In Fromm’s framework, necrophilia is the love of death and the hatred of all
 Humanity.
-It is the passion "to tear apart living structures.“
-Concerned with putrid or filthy aspects of their own and others’ life habits.

2.) Malignant Narcissism

-A belief that everything belonging to one's self is of great value and anything
belonging to others is worthless.
-A need for admiration or adulation and lack of empathy, usually beginning by early
Adulthood.
3.) Incestuous symbiosis
-Extreme dependence on one's mother or mother surrogate.
-Mother-fixation for unconditional love, security, admiration protection; Exaggerated
form of mother fixation.

Psychotherapy
-The goal of Fromm's psychotherapy was to work toward satisfaction of the basic human
needs (relatedness, transcendence, rootedness, etc.)
- Because communication is so important, Fromm believed that the therapist must relate “as
one human being to another with utter concentration and utter sincerity.” This is
accomplished through Talking, Dreams, Fairy tales & Myths.

-Fromm’s Methods of Investigation-

1.) Social Character in a Mexican Village
-Fromm and his associates spent several years investigating social character in an
isolated farming village in Mexico and found evidence of all the character orientations except
the marketing one.
2.) A Psychohistorical Study of Hitler
-Fromm applied the techniques of psychohistory to study several historical people, including
Adolf Hitler—the person Fromm regarded as the world’s most conspicuous example of
someone with the syndrome of decay, that is he possessed necrophilia, malignant
narcissism, and incestuous symbiosis.

Concept of Humanity
-A basic theme in Fromm's thought: We feel lonely and isolated because we have become separated from
nature and from other human beings.

1.) Pessimism vs. optimism

-Fromm was both pessimistic and optimistic. He believed that most people do not accomplish a reunion with
nature or other people and that few people achieve positive freedom. On the other hand, Fromm was hopeful
enough that some people will achieve reunion and therefore realize their human potential.

2.) Free choice vs. determinism

-Individuals have degrees of inclinations towards a freely chosen action, even though
they are seldom aware of all the possible alternatives.

3.) Causality vs. teleology

–Fromm slightly favored teleology. Believed that people constantly strive for a frame of orientation by which to
plan their lives into the future.

4.) Conscious vs. unconscious motivation

-More emphasis on conscious motivation contending that humans are self-aware.

5.) Similarities among people

– He believed that although history and culture impinge heavily on personality, people can
retain some degree of uniqueness and he also allowed room for some individuality.