HUMANISTIC PSYCHOANALYSIS

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ERICH FROMM
• Born in Germany in 1900
• Strict upbringing, similar to Karen Horney
• Eclectic philosophy
• Combination of Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx
• First infatuation / WWI
• Married three times
• Went to the US in 1934, affair with Karen Horney
• 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.
 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 can think about their isolated condition
– a situation Fromm called the human dilemma.
• People experience this basic dilemma because
they have become separate form nature and yet
have the capacity to be aware of themselves as
isolated beings.
Human needs

• These existential needs have

emerged during the evolution of
human culture, growing out of their
attempts to find answer to their
existence.
• It can only be addressed by fulfilling
our uniquely human needs. Fromm
identified five of these distinctively
human or existential needs.
RELATEDNESS
• Drives people to unite with another person through
submission, power and love.
• SUBMISSION - A person can submit to another, to a
group, or to an institution in order to become one with the
world
• POWER - A person seeks additional power, and as a
result, they become more and more dependent on their
partners and less of an individual.
• LOVE -Fromm defined love as a “union with somebody,
or something outside oneself under the condition of
retaining the separateness and integrity of one’s own
self.”
TRANSCENDENC
E
• Is the need for people to rise above their
passive existence and create or destroy life.
• Humans can be creative in other ways. They
can create art, religion, ideas, laws, material
production and love.
• But we can also transcend life by destroying it
and thus rising above our slain victims.
• Malignant Aggression (to kill for reasons)

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ROOTEDNESS
• Is the need for a consistent structure in people’s lives.
• To feel at home again in the world.
• Fromm was influenced by Johann Jakob Bachofen’s ideas on early matriarchal societies.
Bachofen held that the mother was the central figure in these ancient social groups.
 SENSE OF
IDENTITY
• Capacity to be aware of ourselves as a
separate entity.
• People were identified by their social
roles.
• The identity of most people still resides
in their attachment to others or to
institutions such as the nations, religion,
occupation, or social group.
FRAME OF
ORIENTATION
• Consistent way of looking at
the world.
Mechani
sms of
escape
AUTHORITARIANISM
• Tendency to give up the independence of one’s own
individual self and to fuse one’s self with somebody
or something outside oneself.
• Masochism -results from basic feelings of
powerlessness, weakness, and inferiority, and is
aimed at joining the self to a more powerful
person or institution.
• Sadism -more neurotic and more socially
harmful.
DESTRUC
TIVENESS
is rooted in the feelings of
aloneness, isolation and
powerlessness.
CONFORMITY
• people who 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
• Solution to the human dilemma
• Represents overcoming of
loneliness, achieving union with
the world, & maintain individuality.

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Non- • Strategies that fail to move people closer to
Productiv positive freedom and self- realization.
• Not entirely negative ◦
e • Receptive
• Exploitative
Orientatio • Hoarding
• Marketing
ns
Receptive
orientations
• The only way they can relate to the world is
by receiving things; more concerned with
receiving than giving.
• Negative qualities: Passivity, submissiveness,
lack self- confidence
• Positive qualities: Loyalty, acceptance, trust
EXPLOITATIVE
ORIENTATIONS
• They aggressively take what they
desire rather than passively
receive it.
• Negative side: Egocentric,
Conceited, Arrogant, Seducing
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• Positive side: Impulsive, Proud,

Charming, Self-confident
HOARDING
ORIENTATIONS
• Seek to save that which they have already
obtained.
• Negative traits: Rigidity, Obstinacy, Lack
of creativity
• Positive characteristics: Orderliness,
Cleanliness, Punctuality
Marketing
orientations
• Marketing characters see themselves as
commodities, with their personal value
dependent on their exchange value, that is,
their ability to sell themselves.
• Negative traits: Aimless, Opportunistic,
Inconsistent, Wasteful
• Positive Qualities: Open-
mindedness, Generosity
PRODUCTIVE
ORIENTATIONS
• Three Dimensions:
• a. Working -as a means of creative self-
expression
• b. Loving -concerned with the growth and
development of themselves as well as others.
• c. Reasoning / thinking -which cannot be
separated from productive work and love.
PERSONALITY DISORDERS
• NECROPHILIA -means love of death and usually refers to a sexual
perversion in which a person desire sexual contact with a corpse.
• MALIGNANT NARCISSISM -Infatuation with self
• INCESTUOUS SYMBIOSIS -Extreme dependence on the mother or
mother surrogate.

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 Fromm’s Theory Is:

◦ High on Organizing Knowledge

Critique ◦ Low on Guiding Action, Internal

Consistency, and Parsimony

◦ Very Low on Generating Research and

Falsifiability
SUMMATIVE QUIZ

• Module 1 – Carl Jung

• Module 2 – Karen Horney
• Module 3 – Erich Fromm

Written 30 items quiz on Monday – March 20th