ERICH FROMM
ABELAY, EMMA ROSE, R.
CARVAJAL, HARVEY JOSEF
PALCON, MAUREEN
VALLADA, FEBROSE
ERICH FROMM
March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980
Frankfurt, Germany
Grew up in World War era
His view of human nature was
shaped by childhood experience
His infatuation with a girl
Close associate of Karen Horney
BIOGRAPHY
YOUNG FROMM: CONFUSIONS
He encountered a girl who committed to take her own
life to be buried with her father who passed away
Fromm was confused why that girl did that amidst of
her abilities and intelligence
Everything was confusing to young Fromm
During World War, he’s confused of why the countries which are:
• rational
• progressive
• high-intellect
• educated
With those attributes why are they still fighting?
“ H OW C O U L D N O R M A L LY R AT I O N A L A N D P E AC E F U L P E O P L E B E C O M E S O D R I V E N B Y
N AT I O N A L I D E O L O G I E S , S O I N T E N T O N K I L L I N G , S O R E A DY TO D I E ?
FROMM: OVERVIEW OF HUMANISTIC PSYC HOANALYS IS
• Erich Fromm's basic thesis is that modern-day people have been
torn away from their prehistoric union with nature and also with
one another, yet they have the power of reasoning, foresight, and
imagination.
• trained in Freudian psychoanalysis and influenced by Karl Marx,
Karen Horney, and other socially oriented theorists
• emphasizes the influence of socio-biological factors, history,
economics, and class structure.
• assumes that humanity's separation from the natural world has
produced feelings of loneliness and isolation, a condition called basic
anxiety.
FROMM: OVERVIEW OF HUMANISTIC PSYC HOANALYS IS
With
nature Civilized
& Modernity
people
Humans being torn away from the Nature and People has a
profound effect in our personality
FROMM: OVERVIEW OF HUMANISTIC PSYC HOANALYS IS
a) His humanistic psychoanalysis looks at people from a
historical and cultural perspective rather than a strictly
psychological one. It is more concerned with those
characteristics common to a culture.
b) 2 alternatives:
a) to escape from freedom into interpersonal
dependencies
b) to move to self-realization through productive love
and work
FROMM: B ASIC ASSUMPTIONS
• Individual personality can be understood only in the light of
human history
• He believed that humans, unlike animals have been
“torn away” from their prehistoric union with nature.
Fromm believed that humans have been torn away from their
prehistoric union with nature and left with no powerful instincts
to adapt to a changing world.
But because humans have acquired the ability to reason, they
can think about their isolated condition - a situation Fromm
called the human dilemma
FROMM: B ASIC ASSUMPTIONS
• human ability to reason - both a blessing and a curse
Concept of Human Dilemma/ Existential Dichotomies:
1. Between life & death (self-awareness & reason)
2. Capable of conceptualizing the goal of complete self-
realization
3. People are ultimately alone, yet we can’t tolerate
isolation (happiness depends on uniting with their fellow
human beings)
EXISTENTIAL NEEDS:
FROMM: HUMANISTIC • RELATEDNESS
PSYCHOANALYSIS • TRANSCENDENCE
• ROOTEDNESS
HUMAN NEEDS • SENSE OF IDENTITY
(Existential Needs) • FRAME OF ORIENTATION
HUMAN NEEDS: EXISTENTIAL NEEDS
Negative Positive
components components
Relatedness drive for union w/ another Submission / Love
person/ other persons. Domination
Transcendence urge to rise above a passive and Destructiveness Creativeness
accidental existence and into “the
realm of purposefulness and
freedom”
Rootedness • need to establish roots Fixation Wholeness
• to feel at home again in the
world
• influence of mother's role
Sense of capacity to be aware of ourselves Adjustment to a Individuality
Identity as a separate entity group
Frame of need a road map to make way Irrational Goals Rational Goals
Orientation through the world
SUMMARY OF HUMAN NEEDS
• These needs have evolved from human existence as a separate
species and are aimed at moving people toward a reunion with
the natural world.
• Fromm believed that lack of satisfaction of any of these needs is
unbearable and results in insanity.
• People are strongly driven to fulfill them in some way or
another, either positively or negatively.
MECHANISMS OF ESCAPE:
• AUTHORITARIANISM
FROMM: HUMANISTIC • DESTRUCTIVENESS
PSYCHOANALYSIS • CONFORMITY
BURDEN OF FREEDOM POSITIVE FREEDOM
(Mechanisms Of Escape, Positive
Freedom)
BURDEN OF FREEDOM
• Historically, as people gained more and more economic and
political freedom, they came to feel increasingly more isolated.
• For example, during the Middle Ages people had relatively little
personal freedom. They were anchored to prescribed roles in
society, roles that provided security, dependability and certainty.
• As they acquired more freedom to move both socially and
geographically, they found that they were free from the security
of a fixed position in the world.
BURDEN OF FREEDOM
• We became separated from their roots and isolated from one
another.
• On a more personal level, 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.
• On both a social and an individual level, this burden of freedom
results in basic anxiety, the feeling of being alone in the world.
• Freedom is too tiring, exhausting and daunting that is why people
unconsciously desires to escape from it.
BURDEN OF FREEDOM: MECHANISMS OF ESC APE
• Because basic anxiety produces a frightening sense of isolation and
aloneness, people attempt to flee freedom through a variety of
escape mechanisms.
In Escape from Freedom, Fromm identified three primary mechanisms
of escape:
➢Authoritarianism
➢Destructiveness
➢Conformity
MEC HANIS MS O F ES C APE : AU THO RITARIANIS M
• 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
can manifest in 2 forms:
➢ Masochism - results from basic feelings of powerlessness,
weakness, and inferiority and is aimed at joining the self to
a more powerful person or institution
➢ Sadism - more neurotic and more socially harmful.
MEC HANIS MS O F ES C APE : DES TRU C TIVENES S
• rooted in the feelings of aloneness, isolation, and
powerlessness.
• Unlike sadism and masochism, however, destructiveness
does not depend on a continuous relationship with
another person; rather, it seeks to do away with other
people
• Both individuals and nations can employ destructiveness
as a mechanism of escape.
MEC HANIS MS O F ES C APE : C O NFO RMITY
• 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
• People in the modern world are free from many external
bonds and are free to act according to their own will, but at
the same time, they do not know what they want, think, or
feel.
• The more they conform, the more powerless they feel; the
more powerless they feel, the more they must conform.
• People can break this cycle of conformity and powerlessness
only by achieving self-realization or positive freedom.
BURDEN OF FREEDOM: POSITIVE FREEDOM
• can be free and not alone, critical and yet not filled with doubts,
independent and yet an integral part of mankind
• People can attain this kind of freedom, called positive freedom,
by a spontaneous and full expression of both their rational and
their emotional potentialities.
• Through active love and work, humans unite with one another and
with the world without sacrificing their integrity.They affirm their
uniqueness as individuals and achieve full realization of their
potentialities.
NONPRODUTIVE ORIENTATION:
• RECEPTIVE
FROMM: HUMANISTIC • EXPLOITATIVE
PSYCHOANALYSIS • HOARDING
• MARKETING
CHARACTER
ORIENTATION
PRODUCTIVE ORIENTATION
(Nonproductive Orientations,
Productive Orientation)
C HARAC TER O RIENTATIO N
• person’s relatively permanent way of relating to people and
things.
Accdg.To Fromm
Personality - “the totality of inherited and acquired psychic
qualities which are characteristic of one individual and which
make the individual unique”
Character - “the relatively permanent system of all
noninstinctual strivings through which man relates himself to
the human and natural world”
- most important of the acquired qualities of
personality
C HARAC TER O RIENTATIO N
People relate in 2 ways:
• Assimilation - by acquiring and using things.
• Socialization - and by relating to self and others.
In general terms, people can relate to things and to people
either nonproductively or productively.
C H A R AC T E R O R I E N TAT I O N : N O N P RO D U C T I V E O R I E N TAT I O N
People can acquire things through any one of four
nonproductive orientations:
• RECEPTIVE – receiving things passively
• EXPLOITATIVE – taking things through force
• HOARDING – hoarding objects
• MARKETING – exchanging things
NONPRODUCTIVE ORIENTATION: RECEPTIVE
• 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.
o Negative qualities - passivity, submissiveness, and lack of self-confidence.
o Positive traits - loyalty, acceptance, and trust.
NONPRODUCTIVE ORIENTATION: EXPLOITATIVE
• believe that the source of all good is outside themselves.
• they aggressively take what they desire rather than passively receive
it.
• exploitative people prefer to steal or plagiarize rather than create
o Negative Traits - exploitative characters are egocentric, conceited,
arrogant, and seducing
o Positive Traits - impulsive, proud, charming, and self-confident
NONPRODUCTIVE ORIENTATION: HOARDING
• seek to save that which they have already obtained.
• they hold everything inside and do not let go of anything.
• they keep money, feelings, and thoughts to themselves.
• they do not like change
oNegative Traits - rigidity, sterility, obstinacy, compulsivity, and
lack of creativity.
oPositive Traits - orderliness, cleanliness, and punctuality
NONPRODUCTIVE ORIENTATION: MARKETING
• outgrowth of modern commerce in which trade is no longer personal but
carried out by large, faceless corporations.
• consistent with the demands of modern commerce, marketing characters
see themselves as commodities, with their personal value dependent on
their exchange value, that is, their ability to sell themselves.
• personalities must see themselves as being in constant demand; they must
make others believe that they are skillful and salable
• “I am as you desire me”
• marketing people are without a past or a future and have no permanent
principles or values.
NONPRODUCTIVE ORIENTATION: MARKETING
oNegative Traits - aimless, opportunistic, inconsistent, and
wasteful.
oPositive Traits - changeability, open-mindedness, adaptability,
and generosity.
C HARAC TER O RIENTATIO N: PRO DU C TIVE O RIENTATIO N
• single productive orientation has three dimensions:
working, loving, and reasoning.
• only through productive activity can people solve the
basic human dilemma: that is, to unite with the world
and with others while retaining uniqueness and
individuality
C HARAC TER O RIENTATIO N: PRO DU C TIVE O RIENTATIO N
• healthy people value work not as an end in itself, but as a
means of creative self-expression.
• They do not work to exploit others, to market
themselves, to withdraw from others, or to accumulate
needless material possessions.
• They are neither lazy nor compulsively active but use
work as a means of producing life’s necessities.
C HARAC TER O RIENTATIO N: PRO DU C TIVE O RIENTATIO N
• Productive love is characterized by the four qualities of love
discussed earlier—care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge
Biophilia – a passionate love of life and all that is alive. Biophilic
people desire to further all life—the life of people, animals,
plants, ideas, and cultures.They are concerned with the growth
and development of themselves as well as others.
• Biophilic individuals want to influence people through love,
reason, and example—not by force.
• Fromm believed that love of others and self-love are
inseparable but that self-love must come first. All people have
the capacity for productive love, but most do not achieve it
because they cannot first love themselves.
C HARAC TER O RIENTATIO N: PRO DU C TIVE O RIENTATIO N
• Productive thinking, which cannot be separated from productive work
and love, is motivated by a concerned interest in another person or
object. Healthy people see others as they are and not as they would
wish them to be. Similarly, they know themselves for who they are and
have no need for self-delusion.
• believed that healthy people rely on some combination of all five
character orientations. Their survival as healthy individuals depends on
their ability to receive things from other people, to take things when
appropriate, to preserve things, to exchange things, and to work, love,
and think productively
Syndrome of Growth - people with biophilia, love, positive freedom
FROMM: HUMANISTIC NECROPHILIA
PSYCHOANALYSIS MALIGNANT NARCISSISM
INCESTUOUS SYMBIOSIS
PERSONALITY DISORDERS
PERS O NALITY DIS O RDERS
• If healthy people are able to work, love, and think productively, then
unhealthy personalities are marked by problems in these three areas,
especially failure to love productively.
• 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:
➢ Necrophilia
➢ Malignant Narcissism
➢ Incestuous Symbiosis.
PERSONALITY DISORDERS: NECROPHILIA
• “necrophilia” means love of death and usually refers to a sexual perversion in
which a person desires sexual contact with a corpse.
• Fromm (1964, 1973) used necrophilia in a more generalized sense to denote
any attraction to death
• Necrophilia is an alternative character orientation to biophilia
• Necrophilic personalities hate humanity; they are racists, warmongers, and
• bullies; they love bloodshed, destruction, terror, and torture; and they delight in
destroying life.
• strong advocates of law and order; love to talk about sickness,
• death, and burials; and they are fascinated by dirt, decay, corpses, and feces.
PERSONALITY DISORDERS: MALIGNANT NARCISSISM
• narcissism impedes the perception of reality so that
everything belonging to a narcissistic person is highly valued
and everything belonging to another is devalued.
• preoccupation with one’s body often leads to hypochondriasis
or obsessive attention to one’s health.
• Fromm (1964) also discussed moral hypochondriasis or a
preoccupation with guilt about previous transgressions
• Narcissistic people possess what Horney called “neurotic
claims.”
PERSONALITY DISORDERS: INCESTUOUS SYMBIOSIS
• Incestuous Symbiosis - an extreme dependence on the mother or mother
surrogate.
• people are inseparable from the host person; their personalities are blended
with the other person and their individual identities are lost.
• Fromm agreed more with Harry Stack Sullivan than with Freud in suggesting
that attachment to the mother rests on the need for security and not for sex.
• People living in incestuous symbiotic relationships feel extremely anxious and
frightened if that relationship is threatened. They believe that they cannot live
without their mother substitute
o The host need not be another human—it can be a family, a business, a
church, or a nation.
FROMM: HUMANISTIC PSYCHOTHERAPY
PSYCHOANALYSIS
PSYCHOTHERAPY
PS YC HOTHERAPY
• He then evolved his own system of therapy, which he called humanistic
psychoanalysis.
• Compared with Freud, Fromm was much more concerned with the
interpersonal aspects of a therapeutic encounter.
• Fromm: aim of therapy is for patients to come to know themselves. Without
knowledge of ourselves, we cannot know any other person or thing.
• Fromm: patients come to therapy seeking satisfaction of their basic human
needs—relatedness, transcendence, rootedness, a sense of identity, and a
frame of orientation.
• therapy should be built on a personal relationship between therapist and
patient. Because accurate communication is essential to therapeutic growth,
the therapist must relate “as one human being to another with utter
concentration and utter sincerity”
PS YC HOTHERAPY
• Fromm asked patients to reveal their dreams.
• He believed that dreams, as well as fairy tales and myths, are expressed in
symbolic language—the only universal language humans have developed
(Fromm, 1951).
• Because dreams have meaning beyond the individual dreamer,
• Fromm would ask for the patient’s associations to the dream material. Not
all dream symbols, however, are universal; some are accidental and depend
on the dreamer’s mood before going to sleep; others are regional or
national and depend on climate, geography, and dialect.
• Many symbols have several meanings because of the variety of experiences
that are connected with them.
• 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
PS YC HOTHERAPY
THANK YOU!
REFERENCES
• https://sites.google.com/site/ubmichellebadillo/theories-of-personality/fromm-humanistic-
psychoanalysis-theory
• https://youtu.be/wcPzKXSKuf4
• Feist-Feist:Theories of Personality, Seventh Edition
• Erich fromm humanistic psychoanalysis (slideshare.net)
• https://www.slideshare.net/jnjpinugu/fromms-humanistic-psychoanalysis
• Erich fromm psychosocial theory (slideshare.net)
