HUMANISTIC PSYCHOANALYSIS

• Erich Fromm's basic thesis


  Modern-day people have been torn away from their prehistoric union with nature and also with one another, yet they have the power of reasoning, foresight, and imagination
• Humans


  • Lack of animal instincts
  • Presence of rational thought
  • Freaks of the universe
• Self-awareness


  Contributes to feelings of loneliness, isolation, and homelessness
• To escape from these feelings

  People strive to become reunited with nature and with their fellow human beings
• Fromm's theory of personality

  • Emphasizes the influence of sociobiological factors, history, economics, and class structure
  • Assumes humanity's separation from the natural world has produced feelings of loneliness and isolation, a condition called basic anxiety
• Fromm was more than a personality theorist
• Fromm's roles


  • Social critic
  • Psychotherapist
  • Philosopher
  • Biblical scholar
  • Cultural anthropologist
  • Psychobiographer
• Fromm's humanistic psychoanalysis looks at people from a historical and cultural perspective rather than a strictly psychological one
• Fromm's humanistic psychoanalysis is less concerned with the individual and more concerned with those characteristics common to a culture
• Fromm's view of humanity

  Evolutionary - when humans emerged as a separate species, they lost most of their animal instincts but gained an increase in brain development that permitted self-awareness, imagination, planning, and doubt
• This combination of weak instincts and a highly developed brain makes humans distinct from all other animals
• Rise of capitalism


  Has contributed to the growth of leisure time and personal freedom, but has resulted in feelings of anxiety, isolation, and powerlessness
• The cost of freedom has exceeded its benefits, according to Fromm
• Alternatives to the isolation wrought by capitalism


  • Escape from freedom into interpersonal dependencies
  • Move to self-realization through productive love and work
• Fromm’s most 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” (Fromm, 1947, p. 45).
• Fromm (1947): 'Humans 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.'
• Human dilemma


  People experience this basic dilemma because they have become separate from nature and yet have the capacity to be aware of themselves as isolated beings
• Human ability to reason

  Both a blessing and a curse
• Existential dichotomies


  • Life and death
  • Complete self-realization vs short life span
  • Aloneness vs union
• Humans cannot do away with these existential dichotomies; they can only react to these dichotomies relative to their culture and their individual personalities
• Existential dichotomy: Life and death

  Self-awareness and reason tell us that we will die, but we try to negate this dichotomy by postulating life after death
• Existential dichotomy: Complete self-realization vs short life span


  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
• Existential dichotomy: Aloneness vs union

  People are ultimately alone, yet they 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
• Human needs


  • Physiological needs (hunger, sex, safety)
  • Existential needs (relatedness, transcendence, rootedness, sense of identity, frame of orientation)
• Healthy individuals are better able to find ways of reuniting to the world by productively solving the human needs of relatedness, transcendence, rootedness, a sense of identity, and a frame of orientation
• Relatedness


  The drive for union with another person or other persons. Three basic ways: submission, power, love
• Submitting to another


  Becoming one with the world by transcending the separateness of individual existence
• Submissive people


  Search for a relationship with domineering people
• Power seekers


  Welcome submissive partners
• Symbiotic relationship


  Satisfying to both submissive and domineering partners, but blocks growth toward integrity and psychological health
• People in symbiotic relationships


  Drawn to one another not by love but by a desperate need for relatedness, with underlying unconscious feelings of hostility
• People in symbiotic relationships

  Become more dependent on their partners and less of an individual
• Love

  The only route by which a person can become united with the world and achieve individuality and integrity
• Love

  A union with somebody or something outside oneself under the condition of retaining the separateness and integrity of one's own self
• Four basic elements of genuine love

  • Care
  • Responsibility
  • Respect
  • Knowledge
• Care in love

  Caring for the other person and being willing to take care of them
• Responsibility in love


  A willingness and ability to respond to the physical and psychological needs of the other person
• Respect in love


  Respecting the other person for who they are and avoiding the temptation of trying to change them
• Knowledge in love


  Seeing the other person from their own point of view
• Transcendence


  The urge to rise above a passive and accidental existence and into "the realm of purposefulness and freedom"