Refine
Language
- German (9)
- English (83)
- Serbocroatic (2)
- Spanish (25)
Document Type
- Articles (112)
- Interviews (3)
- Reviews (3)
- Books (1)
Has Fulltext
- yes (119) (remove)
To fully develop a science of social character, three aspects of Fromm's social character theory need to be clarified. The first has to do with the difference between individual and social character. Fromm expanded on Freud's description of normal types: erotic (receptive), obsessive (hoarding) and narcissistic (exploitative). Besides the concept of social character, Fromm made three major contributions to the psychoanalytic theory of character: the concept of productiveness, sociopolitical modes of relationship, and the marketing character. Social character is an interac-tion between internalized culture (values) and individual character. This interaction results in variations in social character and helps explain the Secon issue, how so-cial character changes. The concept of social selection explains how narcissistic en-trepreneurs restructure social institutions to shape a new social character. The third issue concerns how social character develops throughout the life cycle. Fromm never offered a developmental theory. Erik Erikson's model of development fit the social character of America at the mid-century. A revision of this model provides a useful construct for understanding changes in the kind of problems being brought to psychoanalysis at the start of the 21st century and also changes in psychoanalytic practice.
E. FROMM's promised volume on clinical psychoanalysis was never completed. Maccoby analyzes the contradictions in E. FROMM's work that contributed to his difficulty in delivering on this promise. Two distinct voices can be discerned in FROMM's work. The analytic voice describes what is and how it came to be. It provides an analysis of the thoughts, emotions, and behavior patterns that may be conscious or unconscious. While the analytic voice helps us understand what can be, the prophetic voice states what should be. The prophetic voice looks to the future and rekindles hope. FROMM's messianic view of hope is central to the prophetic vision.