2. Overview
● Emphasizes the influence of
sociobiological factors,history,
economics,and class structure.
● Humanity’s separation from the natural
world has produced feelings of loneliness
& isolation,called BasicAnxiety
.
3. Erich Fromm
● Born in Germany in 1900.
● Strict upbringing,similar to Karen Horney
● Eclectic philosophy
● Combination of Sigmund Freud and Karl
Marx
● First infatuation /W WI
● Married three times
● Went to the US in 1934,affair with Karen
Horney
4. Erich Fromm
● Went to Mexico towards end of career
● Private Psychoanalytic practice
● Publication of researches and books
● Died in Switzerland in 1980, 5 days before
his 80th birthday.
5. Influences
1. Teachings of humanistic rabbis
2. Karl Marx
3. Sigmund Freud
4. Zen Buddhism
5
. J
ohann Jakob Bachofen
6. Basic Assumptions
● Individual personality can be understood
in the light of human history
.
● Concept of Human Dilemma
◦ Reasoning facility
◦ Awareness as isolated beings
◦ Permits them to survive
◦ Tendency to solve insoluble dichotomies
7. Fundamental Dichotomies
● Life and Death
● Complete Self- realization and shortness
of life
● Separate Individuals and Social
Relatedness
8. Human Needs
● Also known as existential needs
◦ Relatedness
◦ Transcendence
◦ Rootedness
◦ Sense of Identity
◦ Frame of Orientation
9. Relatedness
● Drive for union with
another person or other
persons.
● Submission
● Power
● Love
10. Transcendence
● An urge to rise above
a passive and accidental
existence and into the
realm of
purposefulness and
freedom.
● Malignant Aggression
11. Rootedness
● The need to establish roots
● To feel at home with the world.
● Influence of mother’
s role
12. Sense of Identity
● The capacity to be aware of ourselves as
a separate entity
.
13. Frame of Orientation
● Philosophy
, a consistent way of thinking.
● Refers to Goals or destinations
14. Summary of Human Needs
Negative
Component
s
Positive
Component
s
Relatedness Submission
/
domination
Love
Transcendence Destructiveness Creativeness
Rootedness Fixation Wholeness
Sense of
Identity
Group
conformit
y
Individuality
Frame of
Orientatio
Irrational goals Rational goals
15. Mechanisms of Escape
● Authoritarianism
◦ Tendency to fuse with another person
◦ Masochism /sadism
● Destructiveness
◦ By destruction, people restore feelings of
power.
● Conformity
◦ Reactive, acts like robots
16. Positive Freedom
● Solution to the human dilemma
● Represents overcoming of loneliness, achieving union
with the world, & maintain individuality.
17. Character Orientations
● A person’s relatively permanent way of
relating to persons and things.
● Character replaces instincts
● Assimilation
◦ Acquisition and use of things
● Socialization
◦ Relating to self and others
18. Non- Productive Orientations
● Strategies that fail to move people closer to
positive freedom and self- realization.
● Not entirely negative
◦ Receptive
◦ Exploitative
◦ Hoarding
◦ Marketing
19. Receptive
● The only way they can relate to the world is by
receiving things; more concerned with receiving
than giving.
● Passivity, submissiveness, lack self- confidence
● Loyalty
,acceptance,trust
20. Exploitative
● Aggressively take what they desire
● Egocentric, conceited, arrogant, seducing
● Impulsive,proud, charming,self-
confident.
21. Hoarding
● Hold everything inside and do not let go of
anything.
● Rigidity,sterility
, obstinacy,compulsivity,lack of
creativity
● Orderliness,cleanliness, punctuality
22. Marketing
● Dependent on the ability to sell themselves.
● Personal security rests on shaky grounds.
● No permanent principles or values.
● Opportunistic and wasteful
● Openmindedness & adaptability
24. Personality Disorders
● People who are incapable of love and
uniting with others.
● Necrophilia
● Malignant Narcissism
● Incestuous Symbiosis
25. Necrophilia
● Any attraction to death
● Hates humanity
● Destructive behavior is a
manifestation of their basic character
26. Malignant Narcissism
● Impedes the perception of reality so that
everything belonging to a narcissistic
person is valued and everything belonging
to another is devalued.
30. Examples
● 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 one
● 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
31. Critique
● Fromm’
s Theory Is:
◦ High on Organizing Knowledge
◦ Low on Guiding Action, Internal
Consistency,and Parsimony
◦ Very Low on Generating Research and
Falsifiability
