Erich Fromm Humanistic people as determined by their

Psychoanalysis society. In fact, Fromm makes freedom

the central characteristic of human
BIOGRAPHY nature.
March 23, 1900 HUMANISTIC PSYCHOANALYSIS
Born: Frankfurt, Germany
March 18, 1980 (aged 79) Fromm described man as a species that
Died: Muralto, Switzerland has been detached from the natural
world and is left with no powerful
Heidelberg University
(1922), Heidelberg, instinct to adapt to a changing world.
Education:
Goethe University This detachment and new acquired
Frankfurt freedom lead to feeling of isolation and
Developing the concept
loneliness which causes individuals to
that freedom was a
experience basic anxiety. This condition
fundamental part of
Known For: is what he called human dilemma.
human nature and for
challenging the theories of This dilemma is mediated through
Sigmund Freud. satisfaction of humans needs. To which
Sigmund Freud he identified into 5 existential needs.
Karl Marx
The orientation in which these needs
Zen Buddhism
Influences: are satisfied may either cause a person
Johann Jakob Bachofen
Teachings of humanistic to be psychologically healthy or develop
rabbis psychological disorders.

Erich Fromm was a German-American
Jewish social psychologist,
psychoanalyst, humanistic philosopher,
and democratic socialist. He was
associated with what became known as
the Frankfurt School of critical
theory. And the founder of
psychoanalysis sociology.
PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY
As a psychoanalyst, he applied
psychoanalysis to social, political,
religious, moral activities. he was
particularly interested in the study of
individual and society. He paid much
attention to self-human realization.
Fromm's theory is a rather unique
blend of Freud and Marx. Freud
emphasized the unconscious,
biological drives, while Marx saw
HUMAN NEEDS
Our human dilemma cannot be
solved by satisfying animals needs.
It an only be addressed by fulfilling
our uniquely human needs. Which
moves us towards a connection with
the natural world.
Relatedness
 Drive for union with another
person or other persons. Fromm
postulated 3 basic ways in which
a person may related to the
world:
1. Submission (search for a
relationship with
domineering people)
2. Power (those who seek
submissive partners)
3. Love (union with
somebody, something
 outside oneself under the Sense of Identity
condition of retaining the
separateness and integrity  The capacity to be aware of
of one’s own self) ourselves as a separated entity.

Productive Nonproductive Productive Nonproductive

Love Submission or Individuality: Group

Dominance capacity to conformity:
distinguish primitive
and separate thinking of
Transcendence self as an needing to
individual identity with a
 An urge to rise above a passive entity group
and accidental existence and
into the realm of purposefulness
and freedom. Frame of Orientation
 Defined as a map that enables
Productive Nonproductive people to organize the various
stimuli that impinge on them. A
Creation Destruction way to which humans orient
(Malignant themselves.
Aggression): the
need to destroy
for reason other Productive Nonproductive
than survival
but they can Rational goals Irrational goals
also create and
care about their
creations.
MECHANISMS OF ESCAPE
1. Authoritarianism - the tendency
Rootedness to give up the independence of
one’s own individual self and to
 The need to establish roots or to fuse one’s self with someone or
feel at home with the world. something outside oneself in
order to acquire the strength
Productive Nonproductive which the individual is lacking

Able to grow Fixation: afraid Masochism Sadism

beyond the to move beyond
security of the protective  Feeling of  Strive for
their caregiver security provided inferiority power over
by one’s mother. and others
inadequacy  Gain power
 Compliant to over the weak
others by making
 them
dependent
 Exploiting
others for
benefit or
pleasure
 Making others
suffer
physically or
psychologically
2. Destructiveness – rooted in
the feelings of aloneness,
isolation, and powerlessness.
Seek to do away with others.
3. Conformity – conform try to
escape from a sense of
aloneness and isolation by
giving up their individuality
and becoming whatever other
people desire them to be.
POSITIVE FREEDOM
 According to Fromm, A person
can be free and not alone, critical
and yet not filled with doubt.
Independent and yet an integral
part of mankind.
CHARACTER ORIENTATIONS
 A person’s relatively permanent
way of relating to persons and
things.
 Character replaces instincts
Non- Productive Orientation
 Strategies that fail to move
people closer to positive freedom
and self-realization.
Receptive Receiving things passively
Aggressively take what
Exploitative
they desire
Seeking to save that
Hoarding which they have already
obtained
See themselves as
commodities with their
personal value dependent
Marketing
on their exchange value
that is their ability to sell
themselves
Productive Orientation
 Psychologically health people
work towards positive work. Love
(Biophilia – love for all things),
and the reason.
Personality Disorders
 People who are incapable of love
uniting with others.
Necrophilia
 Characterized as an attraction to
death. A counterpart to biophilia
 Necrophiliac character usually
display destructive manners and
a hatred for humanity.

Assimilation Socialization Malignant Narcissism

 Impedes the perception of reality
Acquisition and Relating to self
use of things and other so that everything belonging to a
narcissistic person is highly
valued and everything belonging
to another is devalued.

Incestuous symbiosis
  As a result of abnormal fixation
on the caregiver. An extreme
dependence on the mother or
mother surrogate

Syndrome of Syndrome of
Decay Growth
Necrophilia Biophilia

Narcissism Love

Incestuous Positive freedom

symbiosis

APPLICATION
Method of investigation
 Social Character in a Mexican
Village: Study of social character
in an isolated farming village in
Mexico. Found evidence of all
character orientations except the
marketing
 A Psychohistorical Study of
Hitler: Applied the techniques of
psychohistory to study Hitler,
the conspicuous example of
someone with the syndrome of
decay ◦ Fromm traces and
describes Hitler’s necrophilia,
malignant narcissism, and
incestuous symbiosis