Erich Seligmann Fromm – was psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, and humanistic philosopher.
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Described people as “freaks of the
universe” because they lack animal
instincts and have reasoning ideas.
His humanistic psychoanalysis assumes humanity’s separation from
natural world resulted in a condition basic anxiety.
Fromm believed that humans have
been “torn away” from nature, he
stated that it’s both a blessing and
a curse.
He called these as Existential Dichotomies. It encourages them to
solve unsolvable dichotomies.
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Humans cannot eliminate dichotomies; they can
only react to it.
3 DICHOTOMIES
1. Most fundamental dichotomy is life and
death
2. Humans are aware that life is too short.
3. People are ultimately alone, yet we can’t
tolerate isolation.
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EXISTENTIAL NEEDS
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These needs have formed, as humans have
evolved civilization. Which arose from their attempt for to discover an explanation for their
existence and avoid from being insane.
 Relatedness – relating into other people
and loving productively.
o Fromm postulated 3 ways in which
people can relate to the world. (1).
Submission (2). Power (3). Love
 Submission – A person can
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submit to person, group, or
institution to be one with the
world
Power – A person seeks
power, and as a result they
become more dependent on
their partners and less of an
individual.
Love - “union with somebody
outside oneself under the
condition of retaining the separateness and integrities of
oneself.
o Symbiotic relationship – established when a submissive person
and a domineering person find
each other.
Transcendence – is the need for people to
rise above their passive existence and create or destroy life.
o Humans can be creative in other
ways. They can create art, religion,
ideas, laws, materials and love.
o But we can also transcend life by
destroying and rising above slain
victims. Malignant reason (to kill
for reason)
Rootedness – feeling that we belong, it’s
the need for a consistent structure in people’s lives.
Rootedness can be pursued in productive and nonproductive means.
o Productive – they actively and artistically relate to the world and become
integrated.
o Counterproductive – reluctance to
move beyond the protective security
by one’s mother.
Sense of Identity – Becoming aware of ourselves as separate and unique individual.
Frame of Orientation – Having a consistent frame of reference to organize perceptions and make sense of our environment.
o Road map
o Final goal
o Irrational goal
o Rational goal
FREEDOM = RESPONSIBILITY
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Because in every action that we make with our
freedom, it comes with consequences/responsibility.
MECHANISMS OF ESCAPE
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Authoritarianism – To acquire strength
o Masochism – a person who derives
gratification from being subjected to
one’s physical pain or humiliation.
o Sadism – tendency to derive pleasure
from inflicting pain, suffering or humiliation from others.
Destructiveness – Offers an escape from the
problem of freedom from eliminating individuals/outside the environment.
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Conformity – People who try to escape from
a sense of aloneness and isolation by giving
up their individuality.
POSITIVE FREEDOM
CHARACTER ORIENTATION
- a person’s character orientation, which is a person’s typically ongoing relationship with beings/things.
- Fromm defined personality as the totality inherited and acquired psychic qualities which are characteristic of an individual, which makes the individual unique.
 People can relate to things and
people either productively/nonproductively.
Nonproductive orientations – strategies that fail
to move a people to positive freedom and self-realization.
 Receptive – receptive personalities
believe the only way they can obtain something they want is to receive from an outside source. They
are more focused on receiving than
giving.
 Exploitative – Exploitative personalities take the things they want by
force or cunning; they exploit others for their own end.
 Hoarding – Hoarding personalities
hoard and save what they already
have. They tend to reject anything
new and want to live in the past.
 Marketing – Marketing personalities experience themselves as
commodities. Their personal security is fragile since they must adjust
their personality to something
which is trendy right now.
o They live by the principle “I
am as you wish me”
Productive Orientation – Those people with productive personalities respects others and themselves for what they are. They relate to the world
by seeing it clearly and developing it through their
own originality.
3 DIMENSIONS OF PRODUCTIVE ORIENTATION
 Working - as a means of creative selfexpression
 Loving - concerned with the growth
and development of themselves as well
as others.
 Reasoning – which cannot be separated from productive work and love.
PERSONALITY DISORDERS
 Necrophilia – means love of death and
usually refers to sexual perversion to a
dead person/corpse.
 Malignant Narcissism – conflict with
reality perception, making everything
associated with a narcissist extremely
associated. They see that other belongings are undervalued.
 Incestuous Symbiosis – Extreme dependence on the mother or mother
surrogate.