psy 3 fromm ppt

Fromm

Chapter 7

Outline

• Biography of Fromm

• Fromm’s Basic Assumption

• Human Needs

• The Burden of Freedom

• Character Orientations

• Personality Disorders

Cont’d

Outline

• Psychotherapy

• Fromm’s Methods of Investigation

• Related Research

• Critique of Fromm

• Concept of Humanity

Biography of Fromm

• Born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1900

• Only child of orthodox Jewish parents

• Humanistic philosophy grew out of early reading of biblical prophets and an association with several Talmudic scholars

• Influenced by writings of Freud and Marx

Biography (cont’d)

• After receiving his Ph.D., Fromm began studying psychoanalysis and was eventually analyzed by Hanns Sachs, a student of Freud

• In 1934, Fromm moved to the U.S. and began a psychoanalytic practice in New York

• His books gained him a worldwide reputation beyond psychology and psychoanalysis

• Died in Switzerland in 1980

Fromm’s Basic Assumption

• Personality can only be understood in the light of history

• Humans have been torn away from their prehistoric union with nature

• “Human Dilemma” – humans have acquired the ability to reason about their isolated conditions

Human Needs• Relatedness

– Drive for union with another person(s)• Three basic ways:

1. Submission2. Power3. Love

• Transcendence– Urge to rise above a passive and

accidental existence and into “the realm of purposefulness and freedom”

Human Needs (cont’d)

• Rootedness– Need to establish roots or to feel at home

again in the world

• Sense of Identity– Capacity for humans to be aware of

themselves as a separate entity

Human Needs (cont’d)• Frame of Orientation

– Being split off from nature, humans need a road map to make their way through the world

• Summary of Human Needs– These needs have evolved from humans’

existence as a separate species– Aimed at moving them toward a reunification

with the natural world– Lack of satisfaction of any of these needs is

unbearable and may result in insanity

The Burden of Freedom• Mechanisms of Escape

– Authoritarianism– Destructiveness– Conformity

• Positive Freedom– Spontaneous activity of the whole personality– Achieved when a person becomes reunified

with others and with the world

Character Orientations• Nonproductive Orientations

– Receptive – Exploitative– Hoarding– Marketing

• The Productive Orientation– Psychologically healthy people work toward

positive freedom

Personality Disorders

• Necrophilia– Love of death and hatred of all humanity

• Malignant Narcissism– Belief that everything one owns is of great value while

anything belonging to others is worthless

• Incestuous Symbiosis– Extreme dependence on one’s mother to the extent that

one’s personality is blended with that of the host person

Psychotherapy• The therapist tries to help the patient

through shared communication in which the therapist is simply a human being

• Goal of Fromm’s psychotherapy:

– Work toward satisfaction of the basic human needs of relatedness, transcendence, rootedness, a sense of identity, and a frame of orientation

Methods of Investigation• Social Character in a Mexican Village

– Study of social character in a isolated farming village in Mexico

– Found evidence of all the 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

Related Research• Fromm did not express his ideas for the

purpose of generating research, and his theory is among the least productive of empirical study

• Saunders & Munro (2000)– Saunders Consumer Orientation Index (SCOI) – College students and other adults in Austrailia

who score high on the SCOI tend to be more angry, depressed, and anxious

Critique of Fromm

• Fromm’s Theory is:– High on Organizing Knowledge

– Low on Guiding Action, Internal Consistency, and Parsimony

– Very Low on Generating Research and Falsifiability

Concept of Humanity

• Average on Free Choice, Optimism, Unconscious Influences, and Uniqueness

• Low on Causality

• High on Social Influences