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OC Lecturenotes Pschology Erich Fromm
OC Lecturenotes Pschology Erich Fromm
Johann Maree
Summer School, UCT. Jan. 2012
Biographical sketch
Fromm was born in Germany in 1900,
the only child of Orthodox Jewish
parents. He studied the Old Testament
intensively under Talmudic scholars.
He gave up the practice of Judaism at
the age of around 26 and declared
himself a non-theist.
He became acquainted with Buddhism
at the same time and studied it in
great depth later in his life.
Other Influences on
Fromm
Besides religion there were three
other major influences on Fromms
thinking and life.
The first was Sigmund Freud. Fromm
studied psychology and received
extensive training in Freudian
psychoanalysis after doing his PhD.
He joined the Institute for Social
Development at Frankfurt University
where he taught psychoanalysis.
Other Influences on
Fromm 2
The second impact on Fromms
life was Nazism.
Due to its rise in Germany the
Frankfurt Institute had to
emigrate to the United States of
America in 1934 as did Fromm.
His brush with Nazism led him to
write Fear of Freedom (1942) in
which he argued that sado-
masochistic fear of freedom
Other influences on
Fromm 3
The third major influence on Fromms
thinking was Karl Marx.
In the work of Marx he saw the key to
understanding history and the radical
humanism expressed in the messianic
vision of the Old Testament prophets.
Much of Fromms writing on modern
society drew on Marxism, including the
concept alienation or estrangement.
Fromms works
Fromms writing spans a wide field
covering psychology, religion, politics
and ethics.
We shall look at only two major
themes of his writing: love and
religion.
We shall investigate Fromms insights
on love and religion while keeping in
mind the objective of the course: the
search for personal wholeness.
Love
Fromm starts his exposition on love by
arguing that to be human is to be
aware of oneself as a separate entity,
but this creates a sense of aloneness
and separateness.
The only way to overcome this prison
of aloneness is through love, mature
love.
Mature love is union under the
condition of preserving ones integrity,
ones individuality.
Love is an activity
Fromm goes further by saying
that love is active: Love is an
action, the practice of human
power.
The activity that love engages in
is giving, giving of oneself, of
ones life.
This does not necessarily mean
sacrificing ones life for another
although it could but also giving
Love comes from strength
One of Fromms most important
themes about love is that it can
only come from a productive
person by which he means a
person who has the capacity,
potency and strength to give
unreservedly:
Giving is the highest expression
of potency. In the very act of
giving, I experience my strength,
my wealth, my power.
Five types of love
Fromm distinguishes between
five different types of love:
Brotherly love
Motherly love
Erotic love
Self-love
Love of God
Brotherly and motherly
love
By brotherly love Fromm means
love of neighbour including the
stranger.
He enriches it further by saying
that brotherly love incorporates
the sense of responsibility, care,
respect and knowledge that
furthers the life of another human
being.
Motherly love is unconditional
Erotic love
Erotic love is the craving for
complete fusion, for union with
one other person. It is by its very
nature exclusive and not
universal.
It is not falling in love nor just
sexual desire, but based on a
love that inspires the wish for
sexual union. It is the fruit of
love.
Self-love
Love of oneself, says Fromm, is
rooted in ones capacity to love,
the affirmation of ones own life,
happiness, growth, freedom.
Love for oneself and love for
another are not mutually
exclusive, they are inseparably
connected.
Love of God
Love of God also springs from the
need to overcome the anxiety of
separateness by the experience
of union.
Our love of God is based on our
understanding of the nature and
character of God which has
changed over time. This will be
dealt with in the section on
religion.
The practice of love
Love is an art and has to be
practised like any other art.
The practice of love requires
discipline, concentration,
patience, and a supreme concern
to master the art.
To concentrate with regards to
others means primarily to be able
to listen, to take what the other
person has to say seriously.
Love means overcoming
narcissism
For the narcissistic person there is only one
reality, that of his or her own thought
processes, feelings and needs.
The only reality for the newly born infant is
its own body and needs primary
narcissism as Freud called it.