• Overview of Psychoanalytic Social Theory
• Biography of Karen Horney
• Introduction to Psychoanalytic Social Theory
o Horney and Freud Compared
o The Impact of Culture
o The Importance of Childhood Experiences
• Basic Hostility and Basic Anxiety
• Compulsive Drives
o Neurotic Needs
o Neurotic Trends
• Intrapsychic Conflicts
o The Idealized Self-Image
o Self-Hatred
• Feminine Psychology
• Psychotherapy
• Related Research
o The Neurotic Search for Glory in the Lab
o Can Neuroticism Ever Be a Good Thing?
• Critique of Horney
• Concept of Humanity
• Key Terms and Concepts
• References
PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIAL THEORY
- built on the assumption that social and cultural conditions, especially
childhood experiences, are largely responsible for shaping personality.
- People who do not have their needs for love and affection satisfied during
childhood develop basic hostility toward their parents and, as a
consequence, suffer from basic anxiety.
TO COMBAT BASIC ANXIETY, PEOPLE MUST ADOPT ONE OF THREE
FUNFAMENTAL STYLES
1. Moving toward people
2. Moving against people
3. Moving away from people.
*Normal individuals may use any of these modes of relating to other people.
*Neurotics are compelled to rigidly rely on only one.
BASIC INTRAPSYCHIC CONFLICT
- The compulsive behavior generates a basic intrapsychic conflict that may
take the form of either an Idealized self-image or self-hatred.
o IDEALIZED SELF-IMAGE – expressed as:
▪ 1. Neurotic Search for Glory
▪ 2. Neurotic Claims or
▪ 3. Neurotic Pride
o SELF-HATRED – expressed as either:
▪ Self-contempt or
▪ Alienation from self
BIORGRAPHY OF KAREN DANIELSEN HORNEY
-
Born in Eilbek, Germany
September 5. 1885
She considered her sea captain father as religious hypocrite.
Husband: Oskar Horney
Affair with Eric Fromm
Died of Cancer on December 4, 1952 (65 y/o)
PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIAL THEORY
- Culture, especially early childhood experiences, plays a leading role in
shaping human personality, either neurotic or healthy.
IMPACT OF CULTURE
- Cultural Influences is the primary bases for both neurotic and normal
personality development.
- Modern Culture is based on competition among individuals.
- COMPETITIVENESS + BASIC HOSTILITY = FEELING OF ISOLATION.
o Which leads to intensified NEEDS FOR AFFECTION (that cause people
to overvalue love)
▪ Fertile ground for the development of neuroses.
o Rather than benefiting from the need for love, neurotics strive in
pathological ways to find it. Their self-defeating attempts result in:
▪ low self-esteem,
▪ increased hostility,
▪ basic anxiety,
▪ more competitiveness, and
▪ a continuous excessive need for love and affection
IMPORTANCE OF CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES
- Childhood is the age from which vast majority of problems arise.
o Variety of traumatic events
▪ E.g., sexual abuse, beatings, open rejection or pervasive
neglect.
o but Horney (1937) insisted that these debilitating experiences can
almost invariably be traced to lack of genuine warmth and affection.
o difficult childhood is primarily responsible for neurotic needs.
- “the sum total of childhood experiences brings about a certain character
structure, or rather, starts its development” (p. 152).
o In other words, the totality of early relationships molds personality
development.
o “Later attitudes to others, then, are not repetitions of infantile ones
but emanate from the character structure, the basis of which is laid
in childhood” (p. 87).
BASIC HOSTILITY AND BASIC ANXIETY
- Children need to experience both genuine love and healthy discipline. Such
conditions provide them with feelings of safety and satisfaction and permit
them to grow in accordance with their real self.
- Unfortunately, a multitude of adverse influences may interfere with these
favorable conditions. Primary among these is the parents’ inability or
unwillingness to love their child.
- basic hostility and basic anxiety are “inextricably interwoven.”
o Hostile impulses are the principal source of basic anxiety, but basic
anxiety can also contribute to feelings of hostility.
BASIC HOSTILITY
- If parents do not satisfy the child’s needs for safety and satisfaction, the
child develops feelings of basic hostility towards the parents.
BASIC ANXIETY
- Children repressed their hostility towards their parents and have no
awareness of it. The Repressed Hostility then leads to profound feelings of
insecurity and vague sense of apprehension, and this condition is called
Basic Anxiety.
o which Horney (1950) defined as “a feeling of being isolated and
helpless in a world conceived as potentially hostile”
- Earlier, she gave a more graphic description, calling basic anxiety “a feeling
of being small, insignificant, helpless, deserted, endangered, in a world that
is out to abuse, cheat, attack, humiliate, betray, envy”.
*basic hostility led to severe anxiety, but anxiety and fear can also lead to strong
feelings of hostility. (Children who feel threatened by their parents develop a
reactive hostility in defense of that threat). This reactive hostility, in turn, may
create additional anxiety, thus completing the interactive circle between hostility
and anxiety.
FOUR GENERAL WAYS THAT PEOPLE PROTECT THEMSELVES AGAINST FEELING
OF BEING ALONE IN A POTENTIALLY HOSTILE WORLD.
1. Affection
a. .In their search for affection, some people may try to purchase love
with self-effacing compliance, material goods, or sexual favor
2. Submissiveness
a. Neurotics may submit themselves either to people or to institutions
such as an organization or a religion. Neurotics who submit to
another person often do so in order to gain affection.
3. Striving for power, prestige, or possession
a. Power is a defense against the real or imagined hostility of others and
takes the form of a tendency to dominate others;
b. prestige is a protection against humiliation and is expressed as a
tendency to humiliate others;
c. possession acts as a buffer against destitution and poverty and
manifests itself as a tendency to deprive others.
4. Withdrawal
a. Neurotics frequently protect themselves against basic anxiety either
by developing an independence from others or by becoming
emotionally detached from them. By psychologically withdrawing,
neurotics feel that they cannot be hurt by other people.
COMPULSIVE DRIVES
- Everyone uses the various protective devices to guard against the rejection,
hostility, and competitiveness of others. But whereas normal individuals are
able to use a variety of defensive maneuvers in a somewhat useful way,
neurotics compulsively repeat the same strategy in an essentially
unproductive manner.
10 CATEGORIES OF NEUROTIC NEEDS
1. The neurotic need for affection and approval.
a. In their quest for affection and approval, neurotics attempt
indiscriminately to please others.
b. They try to live up to the expectations of others, tend to dread selfassertion, and are quite uncomfortable with the hostility of others as
well as the hostile feelings within themselves.
2. The neurotic need for a powerful partner.
a. Lacking self-confidence, neurotics try to attach themselves to a
powerful partner.
b. This need includes an overvaluation of love and a dread of being
alone or deserted.
c. Horney’s own life story reveals a strong need to relate to a great man,
and she had a series of such relationships during her adult life.
3. The neurotic need to restrict one’s life within narrow borders.
a. Neurotics frequently strive to remain inconspicuous, to take second
place, and to be content with very little.
b. They downgrade their own abilities and dread making demands on
others.
4. The neurotic need for power.
a. Power and affection are perhaps the two greatest neurotic needs.
b. The need for power is usually combined with the needs for prestige
and possession and manifests itself as the need to control others and
to avoid feelings of weakness or stupidity.
5. The neurotic need to exploit others.
a. Neurotics frequently evaluate others on the basis of how they can be
used or exploited, but at the same time, they fear being exploited by
others.
6. The neurotic need for social recognition or prestige.
a. Some people combat basic anxiety by trying to be first, to be
important, or to attract attention to themselves.
7. The neurotic need for personal admiration.
a. Neurotics have a need to be admired for what they are rather than
for what they possess.
b. Their inflated self-esteem must be continually fed by the admiration
and approval of others.
8. The neurotic need for ambition and personal achievement.
a. Neurotics often have a strong drive to be the best—the best
salesperson, the best bowler, the best lover.
b. They must defeat other people in order to confirm their superiority.
9. The neurotic need for self-sufficiency and independence.
a. Many neurotics have a strong need to move away from people,
thereby proving that they can get along without others.
b. The playboy who cannot be tied down by any woman exemplifies this
neurotic need.
10. The neurotic need for perfection and unassailability.
a. By striving relentlessly for perfection, neurotics receive “proof” of
their self-esteem and personal superiority. They dread making
mistakes and having personal flaws, and they desperately attempt to
hide their weaknesses from others.
NEUROTIC TRENDS
- Horney began to see that the list of 10 neurotic needs could be grouped
into three general categories, each relating to a person’s basic attitude
toward self and others.
- In 1945, she identified the three basic attitudes, or neurotic trends, as:
(Basic Conflict, 1950)
o (1) moving toward people,
o (2) moving against people, and
o (3) moving away
MOVING TOWARD PEOPLE
- refers to a neurotic need to protect oneself against feelings of helplessness.
- In their attempts to protect themselves against feelings of helplessness,
compliant people employ either or both of the first two neurotic needs; that
is, they desperately strive for affection and approval of others, or they seek
a powerful partner who will take responsibility for their lives.
- Horney (1937) referred to these needs as “morbid dependency,” a concept
that anticipated the term “codependency.”
MOVING AGAINST PEOPLE
- Neurotically aggressive people are just as compulsive as compliant people
are, and their behavior is just as much prompted by basic anxiety.
- Rather than moving toward people in a posture of submissiveness and
dependence, these people move against others by appearing tough or
ruthless.
- They are motivated by a strong need to exploit others and to use them for
their own benefit.
- They seldom admit their mistakes and are compulsively driven to appear
perfect, powerful, and superior.
MOVING AWAY FROM PEOPLE
- In order to solve the basic conflict of isolation, some people behave in a
detached manner and adopt a neurotic trend of moving away from people.
- This strategy is an expression of needs for privacy, independence, and selfsufficiency.
INTRAPSYCHIC CONFLICTS
- Aside from culture and interpersonal conflict, she also emphasized the
intrapsychic factors in the development of personality.
o That is inner conflicts
- Two important intrapsychic conflicts:
o Idealized Self-image
▪ is an attempt to solve conflicts by painting a godlike picture of
oneself.
o Self-hatred
▪ is an interrelated yet equally irrational and powerful tendency
to despise one’s real self.
THE IDEALIZED SELF-IMAGE
- Feeling alienated from themselves, people need desperately to acquire a
stable sense of identity.
o This dilemma can be solved only by creating an idealized self-image,
an extravagantly positive view of themselves that exists only in their
personal belief system.
o These people endow themselves with infinite powers and unlimited
capabilities; they see themselves as “a hero, a genius, a supreme
lover, a saint, a god
- Compliant people: Good and Saintly
- Aggressive People: Strong, Heroic, and Omnipotent
- Detached Neurotics: Wise, Self-sufficient, and Independent.
- Horney (1950) recognized three aspects of the idealized image:
o (1) the neurotic search for glory,
o (2) neurotic claims, and
o (3) neurotic pride
NEUROTIC SEARCH FOR GLORY
- the neurotic search for glory includes three other elements:
o the need for perfection,
▪ refers to the drive to mold the whole personality into the
idealized self.
▪ Erecting a complex set of should and should nots, and referred
to this drive as the tyranny of the should.
o neurotic ambition, and
▪ the compulsive drive toward superiority.
▪ may also take a less materialistic form, such as being the most
saintly or most charitable person in the community
o the drive toward a vindictive triumph
▪ most destructive element of all.
▪ The need for a vindictive triumph may be disguised as a drive
for achievement or success, but “its chief aim is to put others
to shame or defeat them through one’s very success; or to
attain the power . . . to inflict suffering on them—mostly of a
humiliating kind”
NEUROTIC CLAIMS
- Neurotic claims grow out of normal needs and wishes, but they are quite
different.
- When normal wishes are not fulfilled, people become understandably
frustrated; but when neurotic claims are not met, neurotics become
indignant, bewildered, and unable to comprehend why others have not
granted their claims.
NEUROTIC PRIDE
- a false pride based not on a realistic view of the true self but on a spurious
image of the idealized self.
- Neurotic pride is qualitatively different from healthy pride or realistic selfesteem.
SELF-HATRED
- Horney (1950) recognized six major ways in which people express selfhatred.
o First, self-hatred may result in relentless demands on the self, which
are exemplified by the tyranny of the should.
o The second mode of expressing self-hatred is merciless selfaccusation.
o Third, self-hatred may take the form of self-contempt, which might
be expressed as belittling, disparaging, doubting, discrediting, and
ridiculing oneself.
o A fourth expression of self-hatred is self-frustration.
o Fifth, self-hatred may be manifested as self-torment, or self-torture.
o The sixth and final form of self-hatred is self-destructive actions and
impulses, which may be either physical or psychological, conscious or
unconscious, acute or chronic, carried out in action or enacted only
in the imagination.
Key Terms and Concepts
- Horney insisted that social and cultural influences were more important
than biological ones.
- Children who lack warmth and affection fail to meet their needs for safety
and satisfaction.
- These feelings of isolation and helplessness trigger basic anxiety, or feelings
of isolation and helplessness in a potentially hostile world.
- The inability of people to use different tactics in their relationships with
others generates the basic conflict: that is, the incompatible tendencies to
move toward, against, and away from people.
- Horney called the tendencies to move toward, against, or away from people
the three neurotic trends.
- Healthy people solve their basic conflict by using all three neurotic trends,
whereas neurotics compulsively adopt only one of these trends.
- The three neurotic trends (moving toward, against, or away from people)
are a combination of 10 neurotic needs that Horney had earlier identified.
- Both healthy and neurotic people experience intrapsychic conflicts that
have become part of their belief system. The two major intrapsychic
conflicts are the idealized self-image and self-hatred.
- The idealized self-image results in neurotics’ attempts to build a godlike
picture of themselves.
- Self-hatred is the tendency for neurotics to hate and despise their real self.
- Any psychological differences between men and women are due to cultural
and social expectations and not due to biology.
- The goal of Horneyian psychotherapy is to bring about growth toward
actualization of the real self.
• Overview of Post-Freudian Theory
• Biography of Erik Erikson
• The Ego in Post-Freudian Theory
o Society’s Influence
o Epigenetic Principle
• Stages of Psychosocial Development
o Infancy
o Early Childhood
o Play Age
o School Age
o Adolescence
o Young Adulthood
o Adulthood
o Old Age
o Summary of the Life Cycle
• Erikson’s Methods of Investigation
o Anthropological Studies
o Psychohistory
• Related Research
o Adolescent Identity and the Internet
o The Development of Gender Identity
• Impact of Nature and Nurture on Gender Identity
Formation
• Social Pressure to Conform to Typical Gender Identity
• Age of Gender Identity Disclosure and Social Networks
• Critique of Erikson
• Concept of Humanity
ERIK SALOMONSEN
- Mother: Jeweish Dane
- Single-parent family
- Valdemar Salomonsen is the biological father not Theodor Homburger.
OVERVIEW OF POST-FREUDIAN THEORY
- Erikson intended his theory of personality to extend rather than repudiate
- Freud’s assumptions and to offer a new “way of looking at things” (Erikson,
1963, p. 403).
- His post-Freudian theory extended Freud’s infantile developmental stages
into adolescence, adulthood, and old age.
- Erikson suggested that at each stage a specific psychosocial struggle
contributes to the formation of personality.
- From adolescence on, that struggle takes the form of an identity crisis—a
turning point in one’s life that may either strengthen or weaken personality.
- Erikson placed more emphasis on both social and historical influences.
BIOGRAPHY OF ERIK ERIKSON
- June 15, 1902, Southern Germany.
- Analytic Treatment to Anna Freud
- Married to Joan Serson, had four children: Kain, Jon, Neil (with down
syndrome), and Sue.
- Erik Salomonsen, Erik Homburger, and Erik Homburger Erikson
THE EGO IN POST-FREUDIAN THEORY
- Erikson held that our ego is a positive force that creates a self-identity, a
sense of “I.”
- As the center of our personality, our ego helps us adapt to the various
conflicts and crises of life and keeps us from losing our individuality to the
leveling forces of society.
- Erikson saw the ego as a partially unconscious organizing agency that
synthesizes our present experiences with past self-identities and also with
anticipated images of self.
- He defined the ego as a person’s ability to unify experiences and actions in
an adaptive manner (Erikson, 1963)
- identified three interrelated aspects of ego: the body ego, the ego ideal, and
ego identity.
o body ego refers to experiences with our body; a way of seeing our
physical self as different from other people.
o ego ideal represents the image we have of ourselves in comparison
with an established ideal; it is responsible for our being satisfied or
dissatisfied not only with our physical self but also with our entire
personal identity
o Ego identity is the image we have of ourselves in the variety of social
roles we play.
SOCIETY’S INFLUENCE
- To Erikson, the ego exists as potential at birth, but it must emerge from
within a cultural environment. Different societies, with their variations in
child-rearing practices, tend to shape personalities that fit the needs and
values of their culture.
- pseudospecies: that is, an illusion perpetrated and perpetuated by a
particular society that it is somehow chosen to be the human species.
EPIGENTIC PRINCIPLE
- a term borrowed from embryology. Epigenetic development implies a stepby-step growth of fetal organs.
- The embryo does not begin as a completely formed little person, waiting to
merely expand its structure and form. Rather, it develops, or should
develop, according to a predetermined rate and in a fixed sequence.
- ego follows the path of epigenetic development, with each stage
developing at its proper time. One stage emerges from and is built upon a
previous stage, but it does not replace that earlier stage.
STAGES OF PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
1. First, growth takes place according to the epigenetic principle.
That is, one component part arises out of another and has its own
time of ascendancy, but it does not entirely replace earlier
components.
2. Second, in every stage of life there is an interaction of opposites—
that is, a conflict between a syntonic (harmonious) element and a
dystonic (disruptive) element.
3. Third, at each stage, the conflict between the dystonic and
syntonic elements produces an ego quality or ego strength, which
Erikson referred to as a basic strength.
4. Fourth, too little basic strength at any one stage results in a core
pathology for that stage.
5. Fifth, although Erikson referred to his eight stages as psychosocial
stages, he never lost sight of the biological aspect of human
development.
6. Sixth, events in earlier stages do not cause later personality
development. Ego identity is shaped by a multiplicity of conflicts
and events—past, present, and anticipated.
7. Seventh, during each stage, but especially from adolescence
forward, personality development is characterized by an identity
crisis, which Erikson (1968) called “a turning point, a crucial period
of increased vulnerability and heightened potential”
AGE
PSYCHOSOCIA CRISIS
STAGE
BASIC STRENGTH
CORE PATHOLOGY
SYNTONIC (HARMONIOUS)
Vs.
DYSTONIC(DISRUPTIVE)
INFANCY
BASIC TRUST
Vs.
BASIC MISTRUST
HOPE
WITHDRAWAL
EARYLY CHILDHOOD
AUTONOMY
Vs.
SHAME AND DOUBT
WILL
COMPULSION
3-5
PLAY AGE
INITIATIVE
Vs.
GUILT
PURPOSE
INHIBITION
6-13
SCHOOL AGE
INDUSTRY
Vs.
INFERIORITY
COMPETENCE
INERTIA
ADOLESCENCE
IDENTITY
Vs.
IDENTITY CONFUSION
FIDELITY
19-30
YOUNG ADULTHOOD
INTIMACY
Vs.
ISOLOATION
LOVE
EXCLUSITIVITY
31-60
ADULTHOOD
GENERATIVITY
Vs.
STAGNATION
CARE
REJECTIVITY
60-death
OLD AGE
INTEGRITY
Vs.
DESPAIR
WISDOM
DISDAIN
AGE
STAGE
PSYCHOSOCIA CRISIS
ROLE REPUDIATION
BASIC STRENGTH
CORE PATHOLOGY
SYNTONIC (HARMONIOUS)
Vs.
DYSTONIC(DISRUPTIVE)
INFANCY
BASIC TRUST
Vs.
BASIC MISTRUST
HOPE
WITHDRAWAL
EARYLY CHILDHOOD
AUTONOMY
Vs.
SHAME AND DOUBT
WILL
COMPULSION
3-5
PLAY AGE
INITIATIVE
Vs.
GUILT
PURPOSE
INHIBITION
6-13
SCHOOL AGE
INDUSTRY
Vs.
INFERIORITY
COMPETENCE
INERTIA
ADOLESCENCE
IDENTITY
Vs.
IDENTITY CONFUSION
FIDELITY
ROLE REPUDIATION
19-30
YOUNG ADULTHOOD
INTIMACY
Vs.
ISOLOATION
LOVE
EXCLUSITIVITY
31-60
ADULTHOOD
GENERATIVITY
Vs.
STAGNATION
CARE
REJECTIVITY
60-death
OLD AGE
INTEGRITY
Vs.
DESPAIR
WISDOM
DISDAIN
INFANCY
- Freud’s oral phase
- To Erickson, Infancy is time of INCORPORATION.
- ORAL-SENSORY MODE
o 2 modes of incorporation (Receiving and Accepting what is Given).
- BASIC TRUST vs. BASIC MISTRUST
o Primary caregiver: Mother
o Basic Trust: provide food regularly, hear pleasant rhythmic voice,
exciting visual environment (giving in general).
▪ Too much trust: makes them gullible and vulnerable.
o Basic Mistrust: no correspondence between their oral-sensory needs
and their environment.
▪ Too little trust: leads to frustration, anger, hostility, cynicism,
or depression.
▪ Used mistrust in the sense of a readiness for danger and an
anticipation of discomfort.
o Hope: By having both painful and pleasurable experiences, infants
learn to expect that future distresses will meet with satisfactory
outcomes.
o Withdrawal: With little to hope for, they will retreat from the outside
world and begin the journey toward serious psychological
disturbance.
-
-
-
-
EARLY CHILDHOOD
- Anal stage (Freud).
- To Erickson: young children receive pleasure not only from mastering the
sphincter muscle but also from mastering other body functions such as
urinating, walking, throwing, holding, and so on.
- Anal-Urethral-Muscular mode: children learn to control their body,
especially in relation to cleanliness and mobility. Early childhood is more
than a time of toilet training; it is also a time of learning to walk, run, hug
parents, and hold on to toys and other objects. A time of impulsive selfexpression and compulsive deviance, a time of stubborn rebellion and meek
compliance, and a time of loving of cooperation and hateful resistance.
- Autonomy: Self-expression, Children who develop too little autonomy will
have difficulties in subsequent stages, lacking the basic strengths of later
stages.
- Shame and Doubt: Shame is a feeling of self-consciousness, of being looked
at and exposed. Doubt, on the other hand, is the feeling of not being certain,
the feeling that something remains hidden and cannot be seen.
- Will: or willfulness, free will and willpower, Children develop will only when
their environment allows them some self-expression in their control of
sphincters and other muscles.
- Compulsion: Inadequate will,
o Too little will and too much compulsivity carry forward into the play
age as lack of purpose and into the school age as lack of confidence.
PLAY AGE
- Phallic stage (Freud).
- Erikson (1968) contended that, in addition to identifying with their parents,
preschool-age children are developing locomotion, language skills,
curiosity, imagination, and the ability to set goals.
- Genital-Locomotor Mode: children have in genital activity is accompanied
by their increasing facility at locomotion.
- Initiative: Unbridled initiative, however, may lead to chaos and a lack of
moral principles.
- Guilt: if guilt is the dominant element, children may become compulsively
moralistic or overly inhibited.
- Purpose: They set goals and pursue them with purpose. Play age is also the
stage in which children are developing a conscience and beginning to attach
labels such as right and wrong to their behavior.
- Inhibition: Inhibition, which is the antipathy of purpose, constitutes the core
pathology of the play age.
SCHOOL AGE
- Latency Phase (Freud)
- At this age, the social world of children is expanding beyond family to
include peers, teachers, and other adult models.
- For school-age children, their wish to know becomes strong and is tied to
their basic striving for competence.
- In normal development, children strive industriously to read and write, to
hunt and fish, or to learn the skills required by their culture.
- School age does not necessarily mean formalized schools.
- In contemporary literate cultures, schools and professional teachers play a
major part in children’s education, whereas in preliterate societies, adults
-
use less formalized but equally effective methods to instruct children in the
ways of society.
Although school age is a period of little sexual development, it is a time of
tremendous social growth. The psychosocial crisis of this stage is industry
versus inferiority.
School-age children learn to work and play at activities directed toward
acquiring job skills and toward learning the rules of cooperation.
Latency: Sexual latency is important because it allows children to divert
their energies to learning the technology of their culture and the strategies
of their social interactions.
Industry: Industry, a syntonic quality, means industriousness, a willingness
to remain busy with something and to finish a job.
Inferiority:
o As children learn to do things well, they develop a sense of industry,
but if their work is insufficient to accomplish their goals, they acquire
a sense of inferiority.
o Adler (Chapter 3) pointed out, inferiority can serve as an impetus to
do one’s best.
▪ Conversely, an oversupply of inferiority can block productive
activity and stunt one’s feelings of competence.
Competence:
o From the conflict of industry versus inferiority, school-age children
develop the basic strength of competence: that is, the confidence to
use one’s physical and cognitive abilities to solve the problems that
accompany school age. Competence lays the foundation for “cooperative participation in productive adult life” (Erikson, 1968, p.
126).
Inertia:
o They may become preoccupied with infantile genital and Oedipal
fantasies and spend most of their time in nonproductive play. This
regression is called inertia.
ADOLESCENCE
- Most Crucial Development stages is Puberty to young adulthood.
o by the end of this period, a person must gain a firm sense of ego
identity.
o Although ego identity neither begins nor ends during adolescence,
the crisis between identity and identity confusion reaches its
ascendance during this stage.
- Erikson (1982) saw adolescence as a period of social latency.
- Adolescence, then, is an adaptive phase of personality development, a
period of trial and error.
- Puberty: defined as genital maturation, plays a relatively minor role in
Erikson’s concept of adolescence.
o puberty is important psychologically because it triggers expectations
of adult roles yet ahead—roles that are essentially social and can be
filled only through a struggle to attain ego identity.
- Identity: young people strive to find out who they are and who they are not.
o Together these three identity domains—occupational, ideological,
and sexual—form the cornerstone of identity development and
exploration during adolescence.
o identity emerges from two sources:
▪ (1) adolescents’ affirmation or repudiation of childhood
identifications and
▪ (2) their historical and social contexts, which encourage
conformity to certain standards.
- Identity Confusion: An identity crisis may last for many years and can result
in either greater or lesser ego strength.
o Identity confusion is a syndrome of problems that includes a divided
self-image, an inability to establish intimacy, a sense of time urgency,
a lack of concentration on required tasks, and a rejection of family or
community standards.
- Fidelity: or faith in one’s ideology.
- Role Repudiation: blocks one’s ability to synthesize various self-images and
values into a workable identity. Role repudiation can take the form of either
diffidence or defiance.
o Diffidence is an extreme lack of self-trust or self-confidence and is
expressed as shyness or hesitancy to express oneself.
o In contrast, defiance is the act of rebelling against authority.
YOUNG ADULTHOOD
- Fust the identity with the identity of another person, while maintaining
sense of individuality.
- Acquisition of intimacy at the beginning and developed generativity at the
end.
- Genitality: can develop only during young adulthood when it is distinguished by mutual trust, and a stable sharing of sexual satisfaction with a loved person.
- Intimacy: the ability to fuse one’s identity with that of another person without fear of losing it.
o mature intimacy means an ability and willingness to share a mutual trust. It involves sacrifice, compromise, and commitment within a relationship of two
equals.
o Too much togetherness can diminish a person’s sense of ego identity, which leads that person to a psychosocial regression and an inability to face the next
developmental stage.
- Isolation: defined as “the incapacity to take chances with one’s identity by sharing true intimacy”
o The greater danger, of course, is too much isolation, too little intimacy, and a deficiency in the basic strength of love.
- Love: defined love as mature devotion that overcomes basic differences between men and women.
o Although love includes intimacy, it also contains some degree of isolation, because each partner is permitted to retain a separate identity.
o Mature love means commitment, sexual passion, cooperation, competition, and friendship.
- Exclusivity: a person must be able to exclude certain people, activities, and ideas in order to develop a strong sense of identity.
▪ Exclusivity becomes pathological when it blocks one’s ability to cooperate, compete, or compromise—all prerequisite ingredients for intimacy and love.
ADULTHOOD
- that time when people begin to take their place in society and assume responsibility for whatever society produces. For most people, this is the longest stage of
development, spanning the years from about age 31 to 60
- procreativity refers to more than genital contact with an intimate partner.
o It includes assuming responsibility for the care of offspring that result from that sexual contact.
o Ideally, procreation should follow from the mature intimacy and love established during the preceding stage.
- Generativity: defined as “the generation of new beings as well as new products and new ideas”
o concerned with establishing and guiding the next generation, includes the procreation of children, the production of work, and the creation of new things
and ideas that contribute to the building of a better world.
- Stagnation: self-absorption, d when people become too absorbed in themselves, too self-indulgent.
- Care: “a widening commitment to take care of the persons, the products, and the ideas one has learned to care for”
- Rejectivity: is the unwillingness to take care of certain persons or groups (Erikson, 1982).
o Rejectivity is manifested as self-centeredness, provincialism, or pseudospeciation: that is, the belief that other groups of people are inferior to one’s own.
OLD AGE
- Old age need not mean that people are no longer generative.
- Old age can be a time of joy, playfulness, and wonder; but it is also a time of senility, depression, and despair. The psychosexual mode of old age is generalized
sensuality;
o it means to take pleasure in a variety of different physical sensations—sights, sounds, tastes, odors, embraces, and perhaps genital stimulation. Generalized
sensuality may also include a greater appreciation for the traditional lifestyle of the opposite sex.
o A generalized sensual attitude, however, is dependent on one’s ability to hold things together, that is, to maintain integrity in the face of despair
- Integrity: Integrity means a feeling of wholeness and coherence, an ability to hold together one’s sense of “I-ness” despite diminishing physical and intellectual
powers
- Despair: Despair literally means to be without hope; despair, the last dystonic quality of the life cycle, is in the opposite corner from hope, a person’s first basic
strength.
- Wisdom: “informed and detached concern with life itself in the face of death itself”
- Disdain: disdain, which Erikson (1982, p. 61) defined as “a reaction to feeling (and seeing others) in an increasing state of being finished, confused, helpless.”
o Disdain is a continuation of rejectivity, the core pathology of adulthood.
▪ A second existential dichotomy is that humans are capable of
- Overview of Humanistic Psychoanalysis
- Biography of Erich Fromm
- Fromm’s Basic Assumptions
o Human Needs
o Relatedness
o Transcendence
o Rootedness
o Sense of Identity
o Frame of Orientation
o Summary of Human Needs
- The Burden of Freedom
o Mechanisms of Escape
o Positive Freedom
- Character Orientations
o Nonproductive Orientations
o The Productive Orientation
- Personality Disorders
o Necrophilia
o Malignant Narcissism
o Incestuous Symbiosis
- Psychotherapy
- Fromm’s Methods of Investigation
o Social Character in a Mexican Village
o A Psychohistorical Study of Hitler
- Related Research
- Testing the Assumptions of Fromm’s Marketing Character
- Estrangement from Culture and Well-Being
- Authoritarianism and Fear
- Critique of Fromm
- Concept of Humanity
conceptualizing the goal of complete self-realization, but we also are
aware that life is too short to reach that goal.
▪ The third existential dichotomy is that people are ultimately alone, yet
we cannot tolerate isolation.
HUMAN NEEDS
- Only the distinctive human needs can move people toward a reunion with the natural
-
world.
These existential needs have 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 individuals are better able to find ways of reuniting to the world by productively
solving the human needs of relatedness, transcendence, rootedness, a sense of identity,
and a frame of orientation.
RELATEDNESS
- the drive for union with another person or other persons.
- The first human, or existential need.
- three basic ways in which a person may relate to the world:
o (1) submission,
▪ person can submit to another, to a group, or to an institution in order to
become one with the world.
▪ When a submissive person and a domineering person find each other,
they frequently establish a symbiotic relationship, one that is satisfying to
both partners.
• People in symbiotic relationships blame their partners for not
being able to completely satisfy their needs. They find themselves
seeking additional submission or power,
o (2) power,
o (3) love.
▪ love is the only route by which a person can become united with the
world and, at the same time, achieve individuality and integrity.
▪ He defined love as a “union with somebody, or something outside oneself
under the condition of retaining the separateness and integrity of one’s
own self:”
▪ Love involves sharing and communion with another, yet it allows a person
the freedom to be unique and separate.
▪ Four basic Elements to all forms of genuine love (THE ART OF LOVING)
HUMANISTIC PSYCHOANALYSIS
•
•
•
•
- a theory of personality that emphasizes the influence of sociobiological factors, history,
-
economics, and class structure.
His humanistic psychoanalysis assumes that humanity’s separation from the natural
world has produced feelings of loneliness and isolation, a condition called basic anxiety.
His humanistic psychoanalysis looks at people from a historical and cultural perspective
rather than a strictly psychological one. It is less concerned with the individual and more
concerned with those characteristics common to a culture.
BIOGRAPHY OF ERICH FROMM
- B: March 23, 1900, Frankfurt, Germany. Only Child of middle-class orthodox
jewish family.
- F: Naphtali Fromm & M: Rose Krause Fromm.
- Had a very neurotic parents (moody father, and a mother prone to
depression).
- Married to Frieda Reichmann, resembles to her mother.
- Karen Horney, strong mother figure to him.
- 1944, married again to Henny Gurland
- 5 important influences on Fromm’s thinking:
o (1) the teachings of the humanistic rabbis;
o (2) the revolutionary spirit of Karl Marx;
o (3) the equally revolutionary ideas of Sigmund Freud;
o (4) the rationality of Zen Buddhism as espoused by D. T. Suzuki; and
o (5) the writings of Johann Jakob Bachofen (1815–1887) on matriarchal societies.
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Respect
Knowledge
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human beings are driven by the need for transcendence
-
transcendence can be sought through either positive or negative approaches.
o People can transcend their passive nature by either creating life or destroying it.
-
Fromm (1973) argued that humans are the only species to use malignant aggression: that is, to
kill for reasons other than survival.
o Although malignant aggression is a dominant and powerful passion in some individuals
and cultures, it is not common to all humans.
o It apparently was unknown to many prehistoric societies as well as some contemporary
“primitive” societies.
defined as the urge to rise above a passive and accidental existence and into “the realm of
purposefulness and freedom”
ROOTEDNESS
-
A third existential need is for rootedness, or the need to establish roots or to feel at home again
in the world.
-
Rootedness, too, can be sought in either productive or nonproductive strategies.
o With the productive strategy, people are weaned from the orbit of their mother and
become fully born; that is, they actively and creatively relate to the world and become
whole or integrated. This new tie to the natural world confers security and reestablishes
a sense of belongingness and rootedness.
o However, people may also seek rootedness through the nonproductive strategy of
fixation—a tenacious reluctance to move beyond the protective security provided by
one’s mother. People who strive for rootedness through fixation are “afraid to take the
next step of birth, to be weaned from the mother’s breast.
▪ Fromm was influenced by Johann Jakob Bachofen’s (1861/1967) ideas on early
matriarchal societies.
- Fromm’s most basic assumption is that individual personality can be understood only in
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Responsibility
TRANSCENDENCE
FROMM’S BASIC ASSUMPTION
light of human history.
o “The discussion of the human situation must precede that of personality, [and]
psychology must be based on an anthropologic-philosophical concept of human
existence”.
They have no powerful instincts to adapt to a changing world; instead, they have
acquired the facility to reason—a condition Fromm called the human dilemma.
o People experience this basic dilemma because they have become separate from
nature and yet have the capacity to be aware of themselves as isolated beings.
The human ability to reason, therefore, is both a blessing and a curse.
On one hand, it permits people to survive, but on the other, it forces them to attempt
to solve basic insoluble dichotomies. Fromm referred to these as “existential
dichotomies” because they are rooted in people’s very existence.
o Humans cannot do away with these existential dichotomies; they can only react
to these dichotomies relative to their culture and their individual personalities.
▪ `The first and most fundamental dichotomy is that between life and
death.
Care
▪
Fromm’s (1997) strong preference for Bachofen’s mother-centered theory of
the Oedipal situation over Freud’s father-centered conception is consistent with
his preference for older women.
SENSE OF IDENTITY
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the capacity to be aware of ourselves as a separate entity.
-
Neurotics try to attach themselves to powerful people or to social or political institutions.
Without a sense of identity, people could not retain their sanity, and this threat provides a
powerful motivation to do almost anything to acquire a sense of identity.
Healthy people, however, have less need to conform to the herd, less need to give up their sense
of self.
o They do not have to surrender their freedom and individuality in order to fit into society
because they possess an authentic sense of identity
FRAME OF ORIENTATION
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Being split off from nature, humans need a road map, a frame of orientation, to make their way
through the world.
o Without such a map, humans would be “confused and unable to act purposefully and
consistently”.
A frame of orientation enables people to organize the various stimuli that impinge on them.
o People who possess a solid frame of orientation can make sense of these events and
phenomena, but those who lack a reliable frame of orientation will, nevertheless, strive
to put these events into some sort of framework in order to make sense of them.
o road map without a goal or destination is worthless. Humans have the mental capacity
to imagine many alternative paths to follow.
o To keep from going insane, however, they need a final goal or “object of devotion”
▪
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Positive freedom represents a successful solution to the human dilemma of being part of the
natural world and yet separate from it.
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Through positive freedom and spontaneous activity, people overcome the terror of aloneness,
achieve union with the world, and maintain individuality.
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Twin components of positive freedom: Love and Work.
CHARACTER ORIENTATION
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In Fromm’s theory, personality is reflected in one’s character orientation, that is, a person’s
relatively permanent way of relating to people and things.
-
Fromm (1947) defined personality as “the totality of inherited and acquired psychic qualities
which are characteristic of one individual and which make the individual unique” (p. 50).
o The most important of the acquired qualities of personality is character, defined as
this goal or object of devotion focuses people’s energies in a single direction,
enables us to transcend our isolated existence, and confers meaning to our lives
▪
“the relatively permanent system of all noninstinctual strivings through which
man relates himself to the human and natural world”.
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People relate to the world in two ways—by acquiring and using things (assimilation) and by
relating to self and others (socialization).
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In general terms, people can relate to things and to people either nonproductively or
productively.
NONPRODUCTIVE ORIENTATIONS
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People can acquire things through any one of four nonproductive orientations:
o (1) receiving things passively;
o (2) exploiting, or taking things through force;
o (3) hoarding objects; and
o (4) marketing or exchanging things
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Fromm used the term “nonproductive” to suggest strategies that fail to move people closer to
positive freedom and self-realization.
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Nonproductive orientations are, however, not entirely negative; each has both a negative and a
positive aspect
THE BURDEN OF FREEDOM
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Historically, as people gained more and more economic and political freedom, they came to feel
increasingly more isolated.
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As children become more independent of their mothers, they gain more freedom to express
their individuality, to move around unsupervised, to choose their friends, clothes, and so on.
o At the same time, they experience the burden of freedom; that is, they are free from
the security of being one with the mother.
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On both a social and an individual level, this burden of freedom results in basic anxiety, the
feeling of being alone in the world.
MECHANISM OF ESCAPE
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Because basic anxiety produces a frightening sense of isolation and aloneness, people attempt
to flee from freedom through a variety of escape mechanisms.
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In Escape from Freedom, Fromm (1941) identified three primary mechanisms of escape—
authoritarianism, destructiveness, and conformity.
AUTHORITARIANISM
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Fromm (1941) defined authoritarianism as the “tendency to give up the independence of one’s
own individual self and to fuse one’s self with somebody or something outside oneself, in order
to acquire the strength which the individual is lacking”
This need to unite with a powerful partner can take one of two forms—masochism or sadism.
o Masochism results from basic feelings of powerlessness, weakness, and inferiority and
is aimed at joining the self to a more powerful person or institution.
▪ Masochistic strivings often are disguised as love or loyalty, but unlike love and
loyalty, they can never contribute positively to independence and authenticity.
o sadism is more neurotic and more socially harmful.
▪
Sadism is aimed at reducing basic anxiety through achieving unity with another
person or persons.
▪
Fromm (1941) identified three kinds of sadistic tendencies, all more or less
clustered together.
•
•
•
The first is the need to make others dependent on oneself and to gain
power over those who are weak.
RECEPTIVE
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Receptive characters feel that the source of all good lies outside themselves and that the only
way they can relate to the world is to receive things, including love, knowledge, and material
possessions. T
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They are more concerned with receiving than with giving.
o -The negative qualities of receptive people include passivity, submissiveness, and lack of
self-confidence.
o +Their positive traits are loyalty, acceptance, and trust.
EXPLOITATIVE
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exploitative characters believe that the source of all good is outside themselves.
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exploitative people prefer to steal or plagiarize rather than create.
o -On the negative side, exploitative characters are egocentric, conceited, arrogant, and
seducing.
o +On the positive side, they are impulsive, proud, charming, and self-confident.
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destructiveness is rooted in the feelings of aloneness, isolation, and powerlessness.
destructiveness does not depend on a continuous relationship with another person; rather, it
seeks to do away with other people.
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People who conform try to escape from a sense of aloneness and isolation by giving up their
individuality and becoming whatever other people desire them to be.
o Thus, they become like robots, reacting predictably and mechanically to the whims of
others.
o They seldom express their own opinion, cling to expected standards of behavior, and
often appear stiff and automated
The more they conform, the more powerless they feel; the more powerless they feel, the more
they must conform.
o People can break this cycle of conformity and powerlessness only by achieving selfrealization or positive freedom.
People can attain this kind of freedom, called positive freedom, by a spontaneous and full
expression of both their rational and their emotional potentialities.
They keep money, feelings, and thoughts to themselves.
They tend to live in the past and are repelled by anything new.
o -Negative traits of the hoarding personality include rigidity, sterility, obstinacy,
compulsivity, and lack of creativity;
o +positive characteristics are orderliness, cleanliness, and punctuality.
The marketing character is an outgrowth of modern commerce in which trade is no longer
personal but carried out by large, faceless corporations.
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Marketing, or exchanging, personalities must see themselves as being in constant demand; they
must make others believe that they are skillful and salable.
-
Marketing people are without a past or a future and have no permanent principles or values.
o _Negative traits of marketing characters are aimlessness, opportunism, inconsistency,
and wastefulness.
o +Some of their positive qualities include changeability, open mindedness, adaptability,
and generosity.
PRODUCTIVE ORIENTATION
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The single productive orientation has three dimensions—
o working,
o loving, and
o reasoning.
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Healthy people value work not as an end in itself, but as a means of creative self-expression.
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In addition to these four characteristics, healthy people possess biophilia: that is, a passionate
love of life and all that is alive.
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Fromm believed that love of others and self-love are inseparable but that self-love must come
first.
POSITIVE FREEDOM
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They hold everything inside and do not let go of anything.
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CONFORMITY
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hoarding characters seek to save that which they have already obtained.
MARKETING
DESTRUCTIVENESS
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In their social relationships, they are likely to use cunning or force to take someone else’s spouse,
ideas, or property.
HOARDING
The second is the compulsion to exploit others, to take advantage of
them, and to use them for one’s benefit or pleasure.
A third sadistic tendency is the desire to see others suffer, either
physically or psychologically.
they aggressively take what they desire rather than passively receive it.
Productive love is characterized by the four qualities of love discussed earlier—
o care,
o responsibility,
o respect, and
o knowledge.
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Productive thinking, which cannot be separated from productive work and love, is motivated by
a concerned interest in another person or object.
PERSONALITY DISORDERS
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Fromm (1981) held that psychologically disturbed people are incapable of love and have failed
to establish union with others. He discussed three severe personality disorders—
o necrophilia,
o malignant narcissism, and
o incestuous symbiosis.
NECROPHILIA
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The term “necrophilia” means love of death and usually refers to a sexual perversion in which a
person desires sexual contact with a corpse.
o However, Fromm (1964, 1973) used necrophilia in a more generalized sense to denote
any attraction to death.
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Necrophilia is an alternative character orientation to biophilia. People naturally love life, but
when social conditions stunt biophilia, they may adopt a necrophilic orientation.
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Necrophilous people do not simply behave in a destructive manner; rather, their destructive
behavior is a reflection of their basic character.
MALIGNANT NARCISSISM
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Healthy people manifest a benign form of narcissism, that is, an interest in their own body.
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Narcissistic individuals are preoccupied with themselves, but this concern is not limited to
admiring themselves in a mirror. Preoccupation with one’s body often leads to hypochondriasis,
or an obsessive attention to one’s health. Fromm (1964) also discussed moral hypochondriasis,
or a preoccupation with guilt about previous transgressions.
However, in its malignant form, narcissism impedes the perception of reality so that everything
belonging to a narcissistic person is highly valued and everything belonging to another is
devalued.
INCESTUOUS SYMBIOSIS
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incestuous symbiosis, or an extreme dependence on the mother or mother surrogate.
Incestuous symbiosis is an exaggerated form of the more common and more benign mother
fixation.
-
With incestuous symbiosis, however, people are inseparable from the host person; their
personalities are blended with the other person and their individual identities are lost.
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Incestuous symbiosis originates in infancy as a natural attachment to the mothering one.
People living in incestuous symbiotic relationships feel extremely anxious and frightened if that
relationship is threatened.
*SYNDROME OF DECAY: necrophilia, malignant narcissism, and incestuous
symbiosis.
*SYNDROME OF GROWTH: biophilia, love, and positive freedom.