Humanistic Psychoanalysis Quiz

Erich Fromm's Humanistic Psychoanalysis

• Fromm's theory integrates psychology, history, and anthropology.
• Influenced by Freud and Horney but more socially oriented than Freud and broader than Horney.
• Studied psychoanalysis under Hanns Sachs, a student of Freud.

Human Dilemma

• Humans are alienated from nature and lack strong instincts to adapt.
• Acquired ability to reason but are left with isolation from nature.
• "Human dilemma" cannot be solved by satisfying animal needs, but by fulfilling uniquely human needs.

Existential Needs

• These are human needs that address the human dilemma.
• Relatedness: Desire for union with others
  • Can be achieved through submission, power, and love.
  • Love is the only relatedness need that solves the basic human dilemma.
• Transcendence: Urge to rise above passive and accidental existence.
  • Can be expressed through malignant aggression (killing for reasons other than survival) or creation.
• Rootedness: Need to establish roots and feel at home in the world.
  • Productive Rootedness: Moving beyond security of mother and establishing ties with the outside world.
  • Nonproductive Rootedness: Fixated and afraid to move beyond the security of a mother or mother substitute.
• Sense of Identity: Awareness of oneself as a separate person.
  • Productive Identity: Individuality.
  • Nonproductive Identity: Conformity to a group.
• Frame of Orientation: Road map or philosophy for navigating the world.
  • Productive Orientation: Striving for rational goals.
  • Nonproductive Orientation: Striving for irrational goals.

Burden of Freedom

• Humans are the only self-aware animals, which leads to isolation and a feeling of being alone.
• Freedom can become a burden, leading to basic anxiety.
• Mechanisms of Escape:
  • Authoritarianism: Giving up independence and uniting with a powerful partner.
    • Masochism: Stems from feelings of powerlessness, often disguised as love or loyalty.
    • Sadism: Achieving unity by exploiting or hurting others.
• Positive Freedom: Spontaneous activity of an integrated personality.
  • Achieved through reunification with others and the world.

Character Orientations

• Receptive Orientation: Source of good lies outside oneself, and one relates to the world by receiving things.
  • Positive Qualities: Loyalty and trust.
  • Negative Qualities: Passivity and submissiveness.
• Exploitative Orientation: Source of good lies outside oneself, but one aggressively takes what they want.
  • Positive Qualities: Pride and self-confidence.
  • Negative Qualities: Arrogance and conceit.
• Hoarding Orientation: Trying to save what one has obtained, including opinions, feelings, and material possessions.
  • Positive Qualities: Loyalty.
  • Negative Qualities: Obsessiveness and possessiveness.
• Marketing Orientation: Seeing oneself as a commodity and valuing oneself based on the ability to sell oneself.
  • Positive Qualities: Open-mindedness and adaptability.
  • Negative Qualities: Lack of depth.

Psychologically Healthy People

• Achieve positive freedom through productive work, love, and reasoning.
• Biophilia: Passionate love of all life that necessitates productive love.

Personality Disorders

• Necrophilia: Love of death and hatred of all humanity.
  • Destructive behavior reflects a basic character.
• Malignant Narcissism: Belief that everything belonging to oneself is valuable and everything belonging to others is worthless.
  • Often suffer from moral hypochondria, or excessive guilt.
• Incestuous Symbiosis: Extreme dependence on a mother or mother surrogate, leading to a blended personality.
• Syndrome of Decay: Individuals possess all three personality disorders.

Therapy

• Focuses on satisfying basic human needs of relatedness, transcendence, rootedness, sense of identity, and a frame of orientation.
• Therapist acts as a human being, not a scientist, through shared communication.

Social Character in a Mexican Village

• Study found evidence of all character orientations except the marketing one.
• Findings were consistent with Fromm's theoretical views on social character.

Psychohistorical Study of Hitler

• Fromm applied psychohistorical techniques to study historical figures, including Hitler.
• Identified necrophilia, malignant narcissism, and incestuous symbiosis in Hitler.

Critique of Fromm's Theory

• Insights into humanity, but low in terms of scientific rigor.
• Low ratings in generating research, falsification, usefulness to practitioners, internal consistency, and parsimony.
• High in organizing existing knowledge.

Concept of Humanity

• Humans are "freaks of nature" due to the ability to reason and few strong instincts.
• Self-actualization is achieved through satisfying human needs through work, love, and reasoning.
• Average in free choice, optimism, unconscious influences, and uniqueness; low in causality; very high in social influences.