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Erich Fromm’s Humanistic Psychoanalysis
OVERVIEW
Separated from prehistoric union with nature (Lost animal
instincts) and presence of rational thought (Increase brain
development) -- Humans as freaks of the universe / distinct
from other animals
“Self-awareness” -- loneliness, isolation and homelessness (To
escape this feeling: reunite with nature and other human
beings)
Emphasizes the influence of Sociobiological Factors, History,
Economics, and Class Structure
Humanity’s separation from the natural world – “Basic Anxiety”
Historical and cultural perspective rather than strict
psychological one
More concerned with characteristics common to a culture
rather than the individual
“Evolutionary view of Humanity”
“Capitalism” – Leisure time and Personal freedom – Isolation,
Anxiety, Powerlessness – 2 alternatives: to Escape from
freedom into interpersonal dependencies; to Move to Self-
Realization through productive love and work
BIOGRAPHY
March 23, 1900 Frankfurt Germany
View of human nature influenced by childhood experiences
(Jewish Family, suicide of a young woman, extreme
nationalism of Germans)
Neurotic parents and him as a neurotic child
Writings of Freud and Karl Marx
Grew up in an Orthodox Jewish world and a modern capitalist
world
Became a socialist after the war. Studied Philosophy,
Psychology and Sociology at University of Heidelberg
PhD age 22 or 25
1925-1930 studied Psychoanalysis at Munich, Frankfurt and
Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute
Hans Sachs
Frieda Reichmann
Karen Horney (AAP)
William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis,
and Psychology
Henny Gurland (Zen Buddhism)
National Autonomous University in Mexico City (established
psychoanalytic dept. in medical school)
Anis Freeman
Died: March 18 1980 Muralto, Switzerland
Important influences on Fromm’s thinking:
1. Teachings of humanistic rabbis
2. Revolutionary spirit of Karl Marx
3. Revolutionary ideas of Sigmund Freud
4. Rationality of Zen Buddhism
5. Matriarchal Societies by Johann Jakob Bachofen
FROMM’S BASIC ASSUMPTIONS
 Individual personality only can be understood only in light
of human history
 The study of human situation must precedes personality
 Psychology must be based on an anthropologic
philosophical concept of human existence
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Human Dilemma – Condition where humans have no
powerful instincts to adapt to a changing world but have
acquired the facility to reason (result from being separated in
the nature yet they have the capacity to become aware of
themselves as isolated beings)
‘’ Human ability to reason is both a blessing and a curse’’
Existential Dichotomies
1. Life and Death
- Self-awareness and reason tells us that we will all die, but we
try to negate this dichotomy by postulating ‘’Life after Death’
2. Conceptualized Complete Goal of Self-Realization and
Awareness of One’s Lifespan
3. People as Separate Individuals and Incapable of
Toleration (of being alone)
HUMAN NEEDS
Humans can never resolve their dilemma by satisfying the
physiological/animal needs. They can only solve it by the
‘’Human Needs’’ or ‘’Existential Needs’’ to be reunite with the
natural world.
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 find answers to their existence—answers that
more completely correspond to their total human needs – way
to reunite to the world
1. RELATEDNESS
- Drive for union with another person or other persons
- 3 Basic ways in which a person may relate to the world:
 Submission
 Power
 Love
Submission and Power
‘’Symbiotic Relationship’’
Blocks growth toward integrity and psychological health.
‘’Unconscious feelings of Hostility’’
Love
Person can become united with the world and, at the same
time, achieve individuality and integrity
Involves Sharing and communion with another yet it allows a
person the freedom to be unique and separate
‘’In love, two people become one yet remain two.’’
‘’Care, Responsibility, Respect, and Knowledge as four basic
elements common to all forms of genuine love’’ – Book: The
Art of Loving
2. TRANSCENDENCE
‘”Like other animals, humans are thrown into the world without
their consent or will and then removed from it—again without
their consent or will.”
- Need for people to rise above their passive existence and
create or destroy life.
- urge to rise above a passive and accidental existence and
into “the realm of purposefulness and freedom”
- Transcendence can be sought through either positive or
negative approaches. (Creating life or by destroying it)
Malignant Aggression - To kill for reasons other than
survival. Only humans do it. But is not common to all humans.
(Book: Anatomy of Human Destructiveness)
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3. ROOTEDNESS
- Need for a consistent structure in people’s lives.
- Need to establish roots or to feel home again in the world
Productive strategies: Creates a new tie to the natural
world after being weaned from the mother’s orbit – sense of
rootedness and belongingness
Nonproductive strategies: Fixation – Tenacious reluctance
to move beyond the protective security provided by one’s
mother
“Afraid to take the next step to birth, to be weaned from the
mother’s breast, externally dependent ones.”
Rootedness can also be seen “Phylogenetically” in the
evolution of human species (Incestuous Desires)
Incestuous Desires - the deep-seated craving to remain in, or
to return to, the all-enveloping womb, or to the all-nourishing
breasts (not sexual as Freud believed)
These ideas was influenced by the writings of Johann Jakob
Bachofen’s ideas on early Matriarchal Societies
Freud’s belief: Early societies were patriarchal
Bachofen’s belief: Mother was the central figure in these
ancient social groups. It was she who provided roots for her
children and motivated them either to develop their
individuality and reason or to become fixated and incapable of
psychological growth. (Mother-Centered Theory of the
Oedipal situation)
Fromm’s conception of the Oedipus complex as a desire to
return to the mother’s womb or breast or to a person with a
mothering function should be viewed in light of his attraction to
older women.
4. SENSE OF IDENTITY
- Gives a person a feeling of “I” or “me.”
- Capacity to be aware of ourselves as a separate entity
-Because we have been torn away from nature, we need to
form a concept of ourselves like ‘’I am I’’ and ‘’ I am the subject
of my actions’’
-Healthy people (possess sense of identity) have less to
conform to the society, less need to give up their sense of self.
-Do not have to surrender their freedom and individuality to fit
in society
- In agreement with Marx, Fromm believed that the rise of
capitalism has given people more economic and political
freedom. However, this freedom has given only a minority of
people a true sense of “I.” The identity of most people still
resides in their attachment to others or to institutions such as
nation, religion, occupation, or social group.
- Adjustment to the group or Creative movement toward
individuality
5. FRAME OF ORIENTATION
- Consistent way of looking at the world.
-Being split off from nature, humans need a road map, a frame
of orientation, to make their way through the world.
-Without such a map, humans would be “confused and unable
to act purposefully and consistently”
- enables people to organize the various stimuli that impinge
on them.
- Every person has a philosophy, a consistent way of looking
at things (rational / irrational goal)
- Final goal or “object of devotion” - focuses people’s
energies in a single direction, enables us to transcend our
isolated existence, and confers meaning to
their lives.
‘’Burden of Freedom – Basic Anxiety (feeling of being alone
in the world)’’
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MECHANISMS OF ESCAPE
-Unlike Karen Horney’s Neurotic Trends, Mechanisms of
escape are the driving forces in healthy people
(individually/collectively)
-Use to escape from feelings of aloneness, isolation and
powerlessness
1. AUTHORITARIANISM
- Tendency to give up one’s independence and fuse with
somebody or something in order to acquire strength the
individual is lacking
Masochism
Sadism
3 Kinds of Sadistic Tendencies:
 Need to make others dependent of oneself
 Compulsion to exploit others
 Desire to see others suffer physically/psychologically
2. DESTRUCTIVENESS
-Does not depend on a continuous relationship with another
person; rather, it seeks to do away with other people. (Unlike
Authoritarianism)
3. CONFORMITY
- Giving up their individuality and becoming whatever other
people desire them to be.
- Conformity – powerlessness –Conformity
- Self-Realization and Positive Freedom can only break this
cycle
4. POSITIVE FREEDOM
- Successful solution to the human dilemma of being part of
the natural world and yet separate from it.
- ‘’Spontaneous Activity’’
- Love and Work (Twin components of positive freedom)
(Humans unite with one another and with the world without
sacrificing their integrity)
CHARACTER ORIENTATIONS
- Person’s permanent way of relating to other people or things
- Where Personality is reflected
- Personality: The totality of inherited and acquired psychic
qualities -- Characteristic of one individual and which make the
individual unique
- Character: Permanent system of all Noninstinctual strivings
through which man relates himself to the human and natural
world
- ‘’People act according to their character’’ not by their instincts
(Reason why humans behave both efficiently and consistently)
- Ways People Relate to the World:
 Assimilation
 Socialization
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1. NONPRODUCTIVE ORIENTATION
 Receptive
 Exploitative
 Hoarding (Anal characteristic)
 Marketing
2. PRODUCTIVE ORIENTATION
 Work – Producing life’s necessities
 Love – Care, Responsibility, Respect and Knowledge
Biophilia: Passionate love of life and all that is alive,
influence people by love, reason and example – Not Force
 Thinking – Cannot be separated from Productive Work
and Love; Motivated by a concerned interest in another
person or object; See others as they are and not as they
would wish them to be; Know themselves for who they are
‘’Healthy people rely on some combination of all five character
orientations.’’
PERSONALITY DISORDERS
- Incapable of love and failed to establish union with others
1. NECROPHILIA
- Any attraction to death (opposite of biophilia)
- Hate humanity; destructive behavior is reflection of their
basic character
-entire lifestyle of the necrophilous person revolves around
death, destruction, disease, and decay.
2. MALIGNANT NARCISSISM
- Impedes the perception of reality so that everything
belonging to a narcissistic person is highly valued and
everything belonging to another is devalued.
-Destroying those whom they regard as inferiors
- Narcissistic individuals are preoccupied with themselves
- Hypochondriasis: Preoccupation with one’s body –
Obsessive attention with one’s health
- Moral Hypochondriasis: Preoccupation with guilt about
previous transgressions
- ‘’Neurotic Claims’’
- ‘’Depression, Intense guilt, Hypochondriasis’’ – symptomatic
of deep underlying Narcissism
3. INCESTUOUS SYMBIOSIS
- Exaggerated form of benign Mother Fixation
- Inseparable with the Host person
- Their personalities are blended with the other person and
Individual identities are lost
- Agreed with Sullivan: ‘’attachment to the mother rests on the
need for security and not for sex.’’
-The host need not be another human—it can be a family, a
business, a church, or a nation.
Syndrome of Decay: Necrophilia; Narcissism; Incestuous
Symbiosis
Syndrome of Growth: Biophilia; Love; Positive Freedom
PSYCHOTHERAPY
“Humanistic Psychoanalysis”
More concerned with the interpersonal aspects of a
therapeutic encounter
Aim: Allow patients to know themselves. Without knowledge of
ourselves, we cannot know any other person or thing.
‘”Basic Human Needs” - Therapy should be built on a personal
relationship between therapist and patient.
Although Transference and even Countertransference may
exist within this relationship, the important point is that two real
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human beings are involved with one another.

Dreams, as well as fairy tales and myths, are expressed in

symbolic language—the only universal language humans have
developed
Ask for the patient’s associations to the dream material
Not all dream symbols are universal

The therapist should not view the patient as an illness or a

thing but as a person with the same human needs that all
people possess.

Goal: to establish a union with patients so that they can

become reunited with the world.

Psychohistory/ Psychobiography
- Examining the historical documents in order to sketch a
psychological portrait of a prominent person

“The more distant people feel from those around them in their
community, the more people are likely to feel isolated.”

“Personal freedom and a sense of individuality are important,

but when those forces lead people to be estranged from their
community, it can be harmful to their well-being.”