Erich Fromm - Summary Introduction to Psychology PDF

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HUMANISTIC PSYCHOANALYSIS: ERICH FROMM (1900-1980) ○ personality is influenced by social and cultural forces that affect the individual within the culture and by the universal forces that have influenced humanity throughout history (his determines in social is greater than Adler/Horney). ○ suggested that we can find in historical events the roots of contemporary human loneliness, isolation and insignificance ○ to find meaning in life, we need to escape feelings of isolation, develop sense of belonging. ○ too much freedom has become a trap, a negative condition from which we attempt to escape. ○ looks at people from perspective psychology, history and anthropology.

of

2. Self-realization

3. Ultimately Alone

but we also aware that life is too short to reach that goal. We cannot tolerate isolation.

PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS : human dilemma can’t be solved by satisfying our animal needs but by human needs or existential needs. 1. Relatedness • need to form relationships with other people and be concerned with their well-being. • can take in the form of power, submission, love (only form that can solve our basic human dilemma). 2. Transcendence

HUMAN DILEMMA : humans have acquired ability to reason, they can think about their isolated condition. : believed that people have been torn away from their prehistoric union with nature & left with no powerful instincts to adapt to a changing world. : people experience, because they have become separate from nature and yet have the capacity to be aware of themselves as isolated beings. : ability to reason is both a blessing and a curse because it permits to survive but it forces them to attempt to solve basic insoluble dichotomies. EXISTENTIAL DICHOTOMIES (rooted in people’s very existence) Self-awareness/ reason tell us that we will die but we try to negate this dichotomy by 1. Life and Death postulating life after death, an attempt that does not alter the fact that our lives end with death. Capable of conceptualizing goals

• need to be involved in creative activities that use imagination and reason. • being thrown into the world without their consent, humans must transcend by • Destroying: malignant aggression/kill. • Create/Care about people or things. 3. Rootedness • need to foster kinship with family or group. • needs to establish roots and to feel at home again in the world. • Productively: enables us to grow beyond the security pf our mother and establish ties with the outside world. • Non-Productively: become fixated/ afraid to move beyond the security/ safety of our mother 4. Identity • need to develop unique qualities/ abilities. • awareness of ourselves as a separate person. • Productively: individuality • Non-Productively: conformity to a group 5. Frame of Orientation • a road map by which we find our way through the world.

HUMANISTIC PSYCHOANALYSIS: ERICH FROMM (1900-1980) • need to develop a consistent viewpoint w/in which to organize our experiences, and to find a meaningful object or goal to which we commit ourselves. • Productively: movement to rational goals. • Non-Productively: striving irrational goals. 6. Excitation and Stimulation • need for a stimulating environment so that we can maintain peak alertness and energy to cope with the demands of everyday life. THE BURDEN OF FREEDOM ○ humans are “freaks of the universe” ○ FREEDOM-ANXIETY = basic anxiety or feeling of being alone in the world Escape Mechanism (reduce the frightening sense of isolation and aloneness) 1. Authoritarianism give up one’s independence and to unite with a powerful partner. 2. Destructiveness aimed at doing away with other or things. 3. Conformity surrendering of one’s individuality in order to meet the wishes of others. Positive Freedom (achieved when a person becomes reunited with others) CHARACTER ORIENTATIONS ○ person’s relatively permanent way of relating to people and things. ○ people relate to the world by ASSIMILATION (acquiring/using things) and SOCIALIZATION (relating self to others). PRODUCTIVE ORIENTATION (psychologically healthy people work toward positive freedom thru productive work, love and reasoning)

1. Biophilous Character Type

are in love with life and are attracted to growth, creation and construction. 2. Having Character Type person’s life lies in possessions, in the things he or she owns 3. Being Character Type what they are, not in what they have. NONPRODUCTIVE ORIENTATIONS (fail to move people closer to positive freedom and self-realization) 1. Receptive Orient sources of all good lies (outside self) relate to the world (receive things like love, materials or knowledge) 2. Exploitative Orient aggressively take what they want rather than passively receiving it. 3. Marketing Orient value themselves against the criterion of their ability to sell themselves (essentially empty). PERSONALITY DISORDERS ○ Necrophilia: love of death, hatred of all humanity (racists, warmongers, bullies). ○ Malignant Narcissism: great value to self and worthless to others (benign form of narcissism) ○ Incestuous Symbiosis: extreme symbiosis/ dependence on one’s mother. : benign form of mother fixation (a need from woman to care, dote, admire for them). PSYCHOTHERAPY ○ Aim: patients to come to know themselves. Without knowledge of ourselves, we cannot know any other person or thing. ○ He believed that dreams are expressed in symbolic language (the only universal language humans have developed)....