fromm

• humanistic psychoanalysis assumes that humanity’s separation from the natural world has produced feelings of loneliness and isolation, a condition called basic anxiety
• Fromm (1947) believed that humans, unlike other animals, have been "torn away" from their prehistoric union with nature. They have no powerful instincts to adapt to a changing world; instead, they have acquired the facility to reason.
• Curse and Blessing of Reason


  Blessing since we became more efficient in surviving, it's a curse because it forces human beings to solve the unsolvable dichotomies of life which are called Existential Dichotomies.
• Existential Dichotomies

  • Life and Death
  • Humans are capable of concept of conceptualizing the goal of complete self-realization, but we also are aware that life is too short to reach that goal
  • People are ultimately alone, yet we cannot tolerate isolation
• Existential Needs

  As animals, humans are motivated by such physiological needs as hunger, sex, and safety; but they can never resolve their human dilemma by satisfying these animal needs. Only the distinctive human needs can move people toward a reunion with the natural world. These existential needs have emerged during the evolution of human culture, growing out of their attempts to find an answer to their existence and to avoid becoming insane.
• Healthy people


  Those who found meaning to their existence
• Neurotic people


  Those who are still confused about their existence
• Existential Needs

  • Relatedness
  • Transcendence
  • Rootedness
  • Sense of Identity
  • Frame of Orientation
• Relatedness


  The drive for union with another person/s. Three ways to relate to the world: Submission (Negative), Domination (Negative), Love (Positive)
• Love

  A "union with somebody, or something outside oneself under the condition of retaining the separateness and integrity of one's own self"
• Transcendence


  The urge to rise above a passive and accidental existence and into "the realm of purposefulness and freedom". Two ways: Destruction (Negative), Creation (Positive)
• Rootedness


  The need to establish roots or to feel at home again in the world. Two ways: Independence from Mother (Positive), Fixation (Negative)
• Sense of Identity


  The capacity to be aware of ourselves as a separate entity. Two ways: Adjustment to a Group (Negative), Individuality (Positive)
• Frame of Orientation


  Being split off from nature, humans need a road map, a frame of orientation, to make their way their through the world. Two ways: Irrational Goals (Negative), Rational Goals (Positive)
• Fromm believed that lack of satisfaction of any of these needs is unbearable and results in insanity.
• Fromm's Existential Needs is the Basic Hostility of Fromm's Theory. Same with Base Hostility, it also breeds Basic Anxiety.
• Basic Anxiety


  The feeling of being alone in the world
• Some people solve this Basic Anxiety by subordinating or being subordinated by people or Positive Freedom. Most people choose the former rather than the latter.
• Mechanisms of Escape

  The driving forces in normal people, both individually and collectively, to flee from freedom through a variety of escape mechanisms. Three primary mechanisms: Authoritarianism, Destructiveness, Conformity, Positive Freedom
• Authoritarianism


  The "tendency to give up the independence of one's own individual self and to fuse one's self with somebody or something outside oneself, in order to acquire the strength which the individual is lacking". Can manifest in two forms: Masochism (Negative), Sadism (Negative)
• Independence


  As children become more independent of their mothers, they gain more freedom to express their individuality, to move around unsupervised, to choose their friends, clothes, and so on
• Basic anxiety


  The feeling of being alone in the world, resulting from the burden of freedom
• Freedom is too tiring, exhausting and daunting that is why people unconsciously desires to escape from it
• Mechanisms of Escape

  The driving forces in normal people, both individually and collectively, to flee from freedom
• Mechanisms of Escape

  • Authoritarianism
  • Destructiveness
  • Conformity
• Authoritarianism


  The tendency to give up the independence of one's own individual self and to fuse one's self with somebody or something outside oneself, in order to acquire the strength which the individual is lacking
• Forms of Authoritarianism

  • Masochism
  • Sadism
• 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

  Aimed at reducing basic anxiety through achieving unity with another person or persons
• Kinds of Sadistic Tendencies


  • The need to make others dependent on oneself and to gain power over those who are weak
  • The compulsion to exploit others, to take advantage of them, and to use them for one's benefit or pleasure
  • The desire to see others suffer, either physically or psychologically
• Destructiveness

  Unlike sadism and masochism, it does not depend on a continuous relationship with another person; rather, it seeks to do away with other people
• Both individuals and nations can employ destructiveness as a mechanism of escape (WORLD WARS)
• 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
• People in the modern world are free from many external bonds and are free to act according to their own will, but at the same time, they do not know what they want, think, or feel
• Positive Freedom


  A person "can be free and not alone, critical and yet not filled with doubts, independent and yet an integral part of mankind", a spontaneous and full expression of both their rational and their emotional potentialities
• Positive freedom represents a successful solution to the human dilemma of being part of the natural world and yet separate from it
• Through active love and work, humans unite with one another and with the world without sacrificing their integrity. They affirm their uniqueness as individuals and achieve full realization of their potentialities
• Nonproductive Orientations


  Strategies that fail to move people closer to positive freedom and self-realization
• Nonproductive Orientations

  • Receptive
  • Exploitative
  • Hoarding
  • Marketing
• Receptive


  Receptive characters feel that the source of all good lies outside themselves and that the only way they can relate to the world is to receive things, including love, knowledge, and material possessions