basic assumptions

• basic assumption is that individual personality can be understood only in the light of human history
• The discussion of the human situation must precede that of personality, [and] psychology must be based on an anthropologic philosophical concept of human existence
• 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—a condition Fromm called the human dilemma.
• On one hand, it permits people to survive, but on the other, it forces them to attempt to solve basic insoluble dichotomies. Fromm referred to these as “existential dichotomies” because they are rooted in people’s very exis tence.
• Humans cannot do away with these existential dichotomies; they can only react to these dichotomies relative to their culture and their individual personalities.
• first and most fundamental dichotomy is that between life and death. Self Self-awareness and reason tell us that we will die, but we try to negate this dichotomy by postulating life after death, an attempt that does not alter the fact that our lives end with death.
• second existential dichotomy is that humans are capable of conceptualizing the goal of complete self-realization, but we also are aware that life is too short to reach that goal. “Only if the life span of the individual were identical with that of mankind could he participate in the human development which occurs in the historical process”
• third existential dichotomy is that people are ultimately alone, yet we cannot tolerate isolation. They are aware of themselves as separate individuals, and at the same time, they believe that their happiness depends on uniting with their fellow human beings.
• 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.
• The first human, or existential, need is relatedness, the drive for union with another person or other persons.
• Fromm postulated three basic ways in which a person may relate to the world: (1) submission, (2) power, and (3) love. A person can submit to another, to a group, or to an institution in order to become one with the world. “In this way he transcends the separateness of his individual existence by becoming part of somebody or something bigger than himself and experiences his identity in connection with the power to which he has submitted”
• (relatedness. existential need) Whereas submissive people search for a relationship with domineering peo ple, power seekers welcome submissive partners.
• When a submissive person and a domineering person find each other, they frequently establish a symbiotic relationship, one that is satisfying to both partners. Although such symbiosis may be gratifying, it blocks growth toward integrity and psychological health.
• People in symbiotic relationships are drawn to one another not by love but by a desperate need for relatedness, a need that can never be completely satisfied by such a partnership.
• love is the only route by which a person can become united with the world and, at the same time, achieve individuality and integrity.
• 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”
• The Art of Loving, Fromm (1956) identified care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge as four basic elements common to all forms of genuine love.
• Some one who loves another person must care for that person and be willing to take care of him or her
• Love also means responsibility, that is, a willingness and ability to respond.
• But people can respect others only if they have knowledge of them. To know others means to see them from their own point of view. Thus, care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge are all entwined in a love relationship
• A person who loves others responds to their physical and psychological needs, respects them for who they are, and avoids the temptation of trying to change them.
• (need) transcendence, defined as the urge to rise above a passive and accidental existence and into “the realm of purposefulness and freedom”
• The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, Fromm (1973) argued that humans are the only species to use malignant aggression: that is, to kill for reasons other than survival.
• third existential need is for rootedness, or the need to establish roots or to feel at home again in the world. When humans evolved as a separate species, they lost their home in the natural world. At the same time, their capacity for thought enabled them to realize that they were without a home, without roots. The conse quent feelings of isolation and helplessness became unbearable.
• Rootedness, too, can be sought in either productive or nonproductive strategies.
• the nonproductive strategy of fixation —a tenacious reluctance to move beyond the protective security provided by one’s mother
• Peo ple who strive for rootedness through fixation are “afraid to take the next step of birth, to be weaned from the mother’s breast.
• incestuous feelings are based in “the deep-seated craving to remain in, or to return to, the all-enveloping womb, or to the all-nourishing breasts.”
• Fromm’s (1997) strong preference for Bachofen’s mother-centered theory of the Oedipal situation over Freud’s father-centered conception is consistent with his preference for older women.
• The fourth human need is for a sense of identity, or the capacity to be aware of ourselves as a separate entity.
• Instead of the pre-individualistic clan identity, a new herd identity develops in which the sense of identity rests on the sense of an unquestionable belonging to the crowd. That this uniformity and conformity are often not recognized as such, and are covered by the illusion of individuality, does not alter the facts.
• A final human need is for a frame of orientation. Being split off from nature, humans need a road map, a frame of orientation, to make their way through the world.
• With out such a map, humans would be “confused and unable to act purposefully and consistently” (Fromm, 1973, p. 230). A frame of orientation enables people to organize the various stimuli that impinge on them.
• needs

  A) goal

  B) submission or domination

  C) love

  D) creativeness

  E) wholeness

  F) individuality

  G) rational goals

  H) destructiveness

  I) fixation

  J) adjustment

  K) irrational goals