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This article proposes a theory of psychological disturbance (mental illness) as a cultural phenomenon. The theory is based on – and extends – the general cultural psychological theory of Vygotsky, Luria, and Leontiev, as well as the specific social approach to psychopathy of Fromm, Foucault, Laing, and Rieber. We demonstrate that the psychodynamics of individual disturbances are shaped by normative, macro cultural factors, such as gender norms, religious doctrine, family structure, architecture, and clothing. We illustrate this cultural psychological analysis of individual psychology with a case study of a 25 year old Saudi obsessive compulsive patient in Riyadh backed by 50 interviews with students about family relations in Saudi Arabia. We discuss the therapeutic and political implications of our cultural theory of psychological disturbance.
Erich Fromm on Freedom
(2011)
In this paper the writer examines Fromm’s theory of freedom in three stages: pre-freedom, negative freedom and positive freedom in his works especially in >The Fear of Freedom< or >The Escape of Freedom<. The writer discusses Fromm's ideas about three concepts and the distinction between pre-freedom, negative freedom and positive freedom. It seems that Fromm’s conception of positive freedom as the rational pursuit of self-interest translates into an idea of independence or opposite pre-freedom in his social philosophy; moreover, Fromm's idea of negative freedom is not just the absence of constraints, since the word >negative< has a twofold aspect. However, his idea of positive freedom involves a certain degree of independence from other people as an individual; in other words, the maximization of everyone's independence from other people is the very important core of positive freedom for Fromm in his works. In short, it can be clearly seen in Fromm’s conception that positive freedom is, however, constructed independently from his doctrine: it is built on the assumption of the process of growth in human freedom.
This article examines the ultramodern ethical crisis at the nexus of madness, citizenship, and social justice. To investigate this crisis, the article is divided into four substantive sections. The first section reviews the contributions of Hegel, Marx, and Freud. Their collective insights provide an incomplete depiction of ultramodernity’s self/society mutuality. The second section comments selectively on the critical social theory of Lacan, Derrida, Foucault, Baudrillard, and Fromm. This commentary demonstrates how the criminological shadow is sustained coproductively (via the organization of cosmopolitanism) and dialectically (via the self/society duality). The third section proposes several provisional ways of integrating these critical theories as a means of re-conceptualizing the ethic of the criminological shadow. The fourth section applies these new, integrated models to suggest a strategy for overcoming the harm coproduced by the ethic of the criminological shadow within the realm of madness, citizenship, and social justice.