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卢卡奇开辟的西方马克思主义道路为后来的马克思主义者提供智性动力,葛兰西、阿尔杜塞、普兰查斯、拉克劳和墨菲等将隐喻式的>基础—建筑<诠释为符号学意义上的语言生产模式。而法兰克福学派的赖希、马尔库塞和弗洛姆则将马克思主义和弗洛伊德主义结合起来,展开马克思主义语言哲学的欲望政治研究。想象一种语言就是想象一种生命,语言与生命须臾不可分离,后马克思主义者如阿甘本、哈特和奈格里等则将语言生产模式和欲望生产模式推进到生物生产模式,即考察后现代语境下人类社会的生命权力,甚至人体内部的生物权力。无论是语言生产还是欲望政治都是生命权力的外在表现形式,对身体从外到内或从身体到生命,即从生命权力到生物权力的范式转换,才是马克思主义语言哲学的终极关怀。
Erinnerungen an Ágnes Heller
(2019)
Biophilic design, based on humans’ innate connection to nature, evolved into a social movement over many decades. It emerged from Erich Fromm’s early use of the term biophilia to Edward Wilson’s book on Biophilia, the subsequent Biophilia Hypothesis book by Wilson and Stephen Kellert, to the multi-authored Biophilic Design publication in 2008. This progression involved meetings and discussions between people with a shared understanding of the human biological connection to nature and the need to bring nature back into urbanites daily lives. Their vision and passion led to the emergence of the social movement of biophilic design. The moral vision of bringing nature into city design reflects a shared understanding and collective goal beyond self-interest. There was a communal sense of the associated issues with cities which lack nature, such as disconnection from nature, urban heat island effect and water and air pollution, kindling a desire to initiate change.
Homo sapiens demens
(2019)
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and humanistic psychotherapy: an integrative approximation
(2019)
This article explores the similarities between humanistic (and existential) psychotherapy, represented here by the ideas of Viktor Frankl, Erich Fromm and Irvin Yalom, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Despite the ongoing dialogue between both therapies during the last decade, regarding both their convergences and divergences, there is a gap in the literature concerning their complementarity in clinical practice. This analysis addresses this gap with the integrative (or pluralistic) clinician in mind, and approximates a theoretical and practical integration anchored upon the trans-theoretical model.
This chapter employs Caroline Polmear’s contemporary reinterpretation of Michael Balint’s concept of the basic fault as a lens through which to read Othello and Macbeth. In Polmear’s view, borderline pathology arises due to a traumatic rupture in the primal bond between mother and child, and it can take the form of either ocnophilia (clinging to people) or philobatism (clinging to spaces). It is proposed that Othello and Macbeth are representations of these complementary character-types. Othello cannot tolerate any separation from Desdemona, while Macbeth retreats into schizoid isolation. The handkerchief, the loss of which is tantamount to the loss of Desdemona’s love, was received by Othello from his mother at the time of her death, while in Macbeth the rupture of the mother-child bond is figured both in Macduff’s having been >untimely ripped< from his mother’s womb and by Lady Macbeth’s description of killing the baby that was nursing at her breast. Two clinical examples—one of an actual patient, the other of Philip Roth—are offered to illustrate the reciprocal interplay of literature and psychoanalysis. It is argued that the traditional notion of >applied psychoanalysis< should be replaced by what might be called, following Shoshana Felman, >implied psychoanalysis,< or what Fromm has called >literary psychoanalysis.<
This chapter provides a comprehensive overview and rehabilitation of Erich Fromm’s importance as a psychoanalyst. Fromm is lauded for having been an unsurpassed analyst of psychoanalytic politics and the incarnation of what it means to be an independent psychoanalyst, who was unjustly attacked both by orthodox analysts and by his erstwhile colleagues in the Frankfurt School. His 1935 essay, >The Social Determinants of Psychoanalytic Therapy,< in which the influence of Ferenczi and Groddeck is directly acknowledged, and his 1959 book, Sigmund Freud’s Mission, are hailed as summits of his achievement, while The Greatness and Limitations of Freud’s Thought shows him in decline. Three weak points in Fromm’s thought are identified: (1) his tendency to flatten out an individual level of analysis into a purely social level; (2) his penchant for shifting the blame for the problems in psychoanalysis away from Freud onto his followers; and (3) his assumption that motherly love is unconditional. Fromm’s defense of radical humanism is compared with that of Orwell, and it is shown to be grounded not only in philosophy but above all in natural science in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness.
Groddeck’s Lessons
(2019)
This chapter examines both >Groddeck’s teaching,< in the sense of the enduing value of his contributions to psychoanalysis, as well as >Groddeck’s lessons,< that is, what we can learn from his blind spots. The question of who is a psychoanalyst stands at the center of Groddeck’s relationship to Freud, and in accepting Groddeck’s assertion that transference and resistance are the >hubs of treatment,< Freud offers his most expansive definition of a psychoanalyst. Groddeck’s genius is most fully displayed in The Book of the It, the epistolary form of which casts him at once in the roles of analyst and patient. From Groddeck’s biography, it is clear that he was an extremely traumatized individual, as is further attested by his analysis in Letter 25 of his penchant for the number 26,783. But Groddeck does not recognize that he has been traumatized, and his one-sided theory that the It is >responsible for everything< reflects his inability to give due weight to environmental factors. Despite his astonishing candor, Groddeck never discusses his divorce from his first wife or the tragic story of his daughter Barbara, wounds that must have too painful for him to expose to the gaze of the reading public.
This chapter employs Fromm’s concept of the >magic helper< to analyze the symbiotic nature of the Freud-Ferenczi relationship. Because both sadists and masochists, according to Fromm, are unable to tolerate genuine freedom, the sadist is dependent on the masochist, no less than the masochist is dependent on the sadist. As Clara Thompson, who was in analysis with both Ferenczi and Fromm, recognized, Ferenczi suffered from his need to be loved and accepted by Freud, and unconsciously resented him for that reason. Fromm’s contrast between the >original self< and the >pseudo self< parallels Winnicott’s antithesis between the True Self and the False Self, as well as Horney’s antinomy between the >real self< and >phony self.< Marcuse’s critique of Fromm is based on an adherence to Freud’s outmoded drive theory. Whereas Freud plays the role of what Daniel Shaw calls the >traumatizing narcissist< in his relationship with Ferenczi, Ferenczi, until his emancipation in his final years, exhibits the deformations resulting from what Bernard Brandchaft calls >pathological accommodation.<
This chapter offers a proto-Frommian reading of Paradise Lost. The opening section reviews the debate between >theological< and >Romantic< critics of Milton’s poem—C. S. Lewis and Stanley Fish, on the one hand, and A. J. A. Waldock and William Empson, on the other. Although Waldock pointed to the structural contradictions in the epic, and Empson argued that God was >put on trial< in the narrative, the neo-Christians have gotten the upper hand because the neo-Romantics have been unable to provide an overarching framework to account for their observations. The middle section furnishes such a framework by synthesizing Kenneth Burke’s >logological< analysis of the Fall as inevitable from a narrative perspective with Bernard Paris’s insight that God is the supreme narcissist in the poem. The final section compares Milton’s God and Freud as patriarchs who impose a double bind on their followers and are motivated by a compulsive need for fame.
The conflict between Freud and Ferenczi during Ferenczi’s final period centers as much on their differences in technique as on Ferenczi’s revival of Freud’s pre-1897 trauma theory. Severn is the first patient since the 1890s whose childhood sexual trauma was the focus of her analysis, just as she was the first since Anna O. whose trauma-based dissociation was integral to her treatment. The corollary of the revival of trauma theory is a model of the mind based not on repression but dissociation. Ferenczi belongs to a tradition of analysts including Breuer, Fairbairn, and Sullivan who worked with a dissociation model. The fountainhead of this tradition is Janet, but though Ferenczi read and quoted from Janet, no references to Janet are found in Ferenczi’s work after 1924, when he began to move away from Freud. It is necessary to integrate scholarship on Ferenczi with the vast body of work on dissociation. Ferenczi is situated between Freud and Severn. Reversing the traditional verdicts, Ferenczi’s relationship to Freud is viewed as an enactment, whereas his relationship with Severn constitutes an authentic dialogue.
This chapter presents the discovery that Elizabeth Severn’s 1933 book, The Discovery of the Self, contains disguised case histories of both herself and Ferenczi, and thereby constitutes a companion volume to Ferenczi’s Clinical Diary. From having been known primarily as >R.N.,< the most important patient in the Diary, Severn emerges as a subject and original contributor to psychoanalysis in her own right. Severn’s reception of Ferenczi’s legacy is compared to that of two of his other American patients, Izette de Forest and Clara Thompson, the latter of whom envied Severn for her closeness to Ferenczi. Multiple correspondences between the accounts of Ferenczi and Severn of their mutual analysis, as well as of their histories, are set forth. The significance of Strindberg’s play, The Father, for Ferenczi’s transference to Severn is examined. Ferenczi and Severn are shown to have been two deeply traumatized individuals who healed themselves by finding their spiritual counterparts in each other.
Introduction >One Man Cannot Be the Same as Many<: Glimpsing New Paradigms through Old Keyholes
(2019)
The introduction sets the stage for the ensuing chapters by meditating on the key phrases in the title, which are indebted to and inspired by the work of Donnel Stern as well as Philip Bromberg. Fromm is praised for his espousal of a humanistic psychoanalysis as well as his critique of authoritarianism, and his concept of >literary psychoanalysis< is introduced. Freud’s interpretation of Oedipus Rex is shown to be important as much for its >unformulated< assumption of a >hidden reality< theory of the mind as for his extrapolation of the idea of the Oedipus complex. The humanism of Fromm is contrasted with Sullivan’s claim that personal individuality is an >illusion<; Stern and Bromberg are critiqued for decoupling trauma from dissociation and for positing that these are normal conditions of the mind. It is argued that a forensic stance is warranted in hermeneutic endeavors and that it is possible to reconcile objectivist and constructivist epistemologies.
This chapter tackles the perennial critical conundrum of Iago’s motivation. Agreeing with Coleridge’s assessment of his >motiveless malignity,< it argues that all attempts to explain Iago’s character in terms of individual psychology prove inadequate and that he can be more satisfactorily understood by employing Fromm’s concept of >social character.< Iago is the prototype of early modern capitalist man who exhibits the >pathology of normalcy< and exemplifies three of Fromm’s four >unproductive orientations<—exploitative, hoarding, and marketing. Iago’s lack of a sense of self leads him to destroy rather than to create, and thus manifests the impulse for negative transcendence, or what Fromm terms necrophilia. As necrophilia is the most malignant form of the anal character, this analysis accounts for the pervasiveness of anal imagery in Othello, including in the speeches of the otherwise feeble Clown. Iago, neither devil nor human, is at once a product of his age and the quintessence of all those, from Caligula to Hitler, for whom madness is a way of life because they seek to transcend through destruction the limits of human existence.
This chapter takes to task Elisabeth Roudinesco’s biography, Freud in His Time and Others, for innumerable factual errors and, even worse, for the assumption that she is presenting the objective truth about Freud. Three traditions of Freud biography are delineated: the hagiographic, of which Roudinesco’s is the latest example, the Freud-bashing, and the revisionist, which sees Freud as having created something incontestably great but also as having been tragically flawed as a human being. Roudinesco’s errors range from the trivial, to the mildly compromising, to the inexcusable and disqualifying. With respect to Jung, Roudinesco is shown to rely on Deirdre Bair’s biography, which is itself unreliable, instead of on her own reading of the primary sources. Roudinesco’s true colors are displayed above all in her treatment of Freud’s sexuality, as when she asserts that he has been >accused< of masturbation, claims that an affair with his sister-in-law >doubtless never happened,< and alleges that Freud had a >horror of adultery.< The all-too-human Freud was very different from the lifeless icon worshiped by Roudinesco.
这篇文章力图把>当代病态<这一议题做一个需要解决的问题,并尝试清楚地阐释它。我阐述了一个文化政治模式,即(a)为什么病态以多种形式,并广泛存在于社会各个领域,(b)如何干预泛滥的病态,并最终根除它。此模式借鉴了埃里克·弗洛姆的工作成果,他阐明:在许多或大多数社会里,病态是如何成为正常社会的,心理的活动的特征的。这篇文章还讨论了两种流行病态模式,它们误解病态,非正确,因而不能纠正、根除或预防病态。第一种错误解释病态的是标准生物医学模式。第二种错误解释病态的是自由主义—人文主义和后现代主义的模式,它否认所有病态,并坚持认为所有行为包括病态是个体选择和主动性的积极表现,必须得到确认和接受,而不是纠正。
We use to think that creativity is an attribute that any individual, to a greater or lesser extent, has. In this essay I will try to show that, besides the obvious differences among individuals, every man choose, more or less consciously, to narcotize part of his creative attitude because in some cases it is advantageous for himself and for the species. In order to do that, I will give a working definition of the concept of creativity (§ 1); then, echoing the words of Erich Fromm, I will outline an individual phenomenology of the creative attitude that might allow the reader to recognize a creative behavior when he sees it (§ 2);(§ 3) lastly, I will try to show, through the use of empirical data on man and on non-human primates, what are the advantages for the species and for the single individual of not acting creatively.
Capitalism and Mental Health
(2019)
The psychoanalytical framework developed by Marxist Erich Fromm strongly challenges the dominant biological and individualistic explanations of the mental-health crisis that is now sweeping the globe. Fromm emphasized that all humans have certain needs that must be fulfilled in order to ensure optimal mental health. It follows that capitalism is crucial to determining the experience and prevalence of mental well-being, as its operations are incompatible with true human need.
>Endgame<, the masterpiece of Samuel Beckett, a most difficult and elusive play, is such a creative work, representing the postwar social spirit. Psychological alienation is obvious in the play, since anti-hero figures, broken language, bare stage and simple actions are largely employed to prove the psychological alienation of the characters in the play. This thesis is based on Erich Fromm’s psychological alienation theory from three aspects: >Authoritarianism, destructiveness, acceptance and exploitation< (Fromm: Escape from Freedom, 24) to explore the main characters Hamm and Clov’s psychological alienation in the hopeless society. And people’s inner world is alienated, lonely and empty after World War II. [Automatic translation]
托马斯·品钦是当代美国文坛最著名的后现代作家之一。他的作品以奇谲诡异的构思、百科全书式的叙述、神秘怪诞的情节和富含哲理的隐喻而著称,颇具影响力。《拍卖第49批》是品钦的第二部小说,虽是他所有长篇小说中篇幅最短的,却有着>体小而才华横溢<的美称。小说围绕一位受过高等教育的年轻太太(奥狄芭·马斯)追寻神秘组织特里斯特罗的故事而展开。该小说自问世以来就引起了批评界的广泛关注,并在1967年获得由全国文学艺术学会颁发的>理查德与希尔达·罗森塞尔基金奖<。这部小说写于20世纪60年代,是美国历史上政治和社会最动荡的10年。在此期间,毒品文化兴起,越南战争,摇滚革命同时爆发。这也是约翰·F·肯尼迪和马丁·路德·金被暗杀、各种民权运动以及女权运动突起的时期。这部小说充分展现了这场文化运动,描绘了一个碎片化的社会。《拍卖第49批》弥漫着一种无处不在的文化混乱感,生动地描绘了当时美国文化和社会的方方面面。本论文将结合熵定律,并借用弗洛姆的相关理论,探讨《拍卖第49批》的现实意义和独特价值,揭示品钦小说所反映的后现代熵化社会中人类的生存困境。本文首先是分析文中后现代熵化社会的特征,如支离破碎的亚文化,扭曲的信息传递和无效的交流系统,病态混乱的美国社会。其次是分析文中人物所遇到的生存困境,主要是人的异化和物化,情感的孤独,真爱的缺失,自我身份认同的焦虑。然后分析品钦给出的解决方案以及他提出的社会改良政策,包括追寻的意义,交流的重要性。最终得出结论,品钦带着强烈的人文关怀,揭示了社会的熵化现状和现代人的生存困境,从侧面反映出他对极权的蔑视、对现实的关注和对人类终极命运的思考.
The Birth of Freedom and Its Possibility — Fromm's >Escape from Freedom< [自由的诞生及其可能——基于弗洛姆《逃避自由》的思考]
(2019)
自由在西方社会中常常被认为是最重要的政治价值,是人人向往的理想状态。它与人类是理性与自我意识的动物的观念相呼应,也为人们展现了满足利益或实现潜力的希望。>什么是自由?如何才能实现自由?<也一直是古往今来思想家们苦苦思索的问题。然而,在《逃避自由》一书中,弗洛姆从个人心理层面指出了自由的负担,揭示了在资本主义和大机器时代中下阶层的群众心理,即逃避自由。自我价值的消解、资本的垄断、新教的压迫和同类的竞争使得人的始发纽带断裂,与日俱增的孤独感和不安感使得人甚至渴望外界权威的统治,主动除掉个人自我和自由的负担,典型的威权政治法西斯主义因时而生。面临着现代种种危机,自由何以可能?事实上,自由必须通过社会途径得以表达和实现,也必须通过社会共同体的维系才能保障,因此,>善<的社会秩序是失落的自由最后的避难所。
Propaganda is a centuries-old term, and yet scholars and practitioners are still having a hard time defining it and pinpointing what makes propaganda unique. Many existing definitions fail to distinguish between propaganda and marketing, public relations, advertising, or even mass communications, in general. This essay proposes to define propaganda through psychoanalytical research pioneered by Erich Fromm on symbiotic relations. Symbiotic relations, when transferred from biology to psychology and sociology, describe a process of allowing a person to merge with something big and important, therefore creating meaning beyond an individual’s life. As a result, following its religious roots, propaganda acts similar to religion – asking for a sacrifice of individualism in the name of something bigger – god, country, society, or political party. In the end, people willingly engage in propaganda because, although sacrificing something, they receive unity with the bigger powers of other people, organizations, political parties, countries, and so on. As a result, such persons are not alone against the world; they are now a part of a bigger and stronger union.
This article highlights the psychosocial relevance of Erich Fromm’s concepts of >social character< and >social change< to broaden our understanding of the intergenerational traumatic legacy of neoliberalism. As part of this, it also reflects on the psychosocial significance of other related concepts – namely Pierre Bourdieu’s >habitus< and Raymond Williams’ >structures of feeling< – as ways to also acknowledge their significance when related to each other in emerging research on the neoliberal effects of changes in work and identities. This includes secondary analysis of my own earlier research on the psychosocial ramifications of the loss of stable work, changing worker-gendered identities, disrupted affect, community engagement and historical memory within a global context of insecure labour. This is all understood within a theoretical frame that stresses the emerging neoliberal forms of social character in the aftermath of the massive redundancies and unemployment experienced recently in post-industrial working-class communities in the UK.
The critical theory of the Frankfurt School reached Egypt in 1955, when the Arabic translation of Erich Fromm’s >The Sane Society< (New York, 1955) was published in Cairo. Later, Herbert Marcuse’s >Soviet Marxism< (1958) was translated into Arabic in Beirut in 1965, and with the rise of student protests in France, Germany, and the United States, much attention was given to Marcuse; almost all his writings were translated into Arabic between 1969 and 1973. This article explores the nature of individual >receptions< of the critical theory of the Frankfurt School at Egyptian universities. To this end, it briefly introduces the early generation of the Frankfurt School, as well as the reasons of interest in its fate in Egyptian universities. Though master’s theses and doctoral dissertations do not represent a university’s orientation to critical theory, and at best represent the perspective of their individual authors, this article shows that key individual theses and dissertations testify to an early rejection of the Frankfurt School and to the late adoption of it as a critical paradigm of the transformations in Egyptian society.
In this chapter, the author introduces his autobiographical near-death experience of a motorcycle accident as the basis for examining his life and the self-study that forms this book, within a gestalt or whole. Touching on the figure-ground-contact approach of Gestalt Therapy, the author puts this self-study within the context of a lifetime of involvement in the Japanese art of Ki Aikido. In Aikido, one learns to coordinate their mind, body, and life energy (Japanese: ki) to better attune and move in synchronization with the world around them. The ethos of Aikido reflects the broader virtue ethics of traditional Japanese arts – >do<, >michi<, or >way< – and how this approach to education aims for spiritual self-cultivation in daily life, rather than mere acquisition of technical or intellectual knowledge. Through Aikido, Japanese calligraphy or shodo (which the author took up as a comparative/adjunct >way< for his study), and beyond into increased skillful awareness in motorcycling and educational praxis, this chapter draws on Yasuo Yuasa’s theory of ki as ‘teleological intentionality.’ By taking a ‘path’ approach to learning through this >ki awareness< one thus develops and enhances their embodied presence into what Yuasa calls >transpersonal synchronization.<
In the conclusion entitled >A Holistic Relational Paradigm,< the author draws on key themes in the manuscript: attachment, healing, psychosocial development, and an altruistic approach to fostering prosocial behavior. Epstein’s (2014) work relates the early trauma of the Buddha’s loss of his mother after childbirth to his resultant view of ‘suffering.’ Epstein explores how this attachment >wound< is mirrored in the Buddhist view that we suffer as the result of not knowing how to integrate the reality of ‘impermanence.’ The author continues to generalize this universal or psycho-spiritual view (as opposed to one based on our ‘personal’ pathology or ‘narrative’) through the core training principles of Ki Aikido, like the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, as ways of laying out a more liberatory path in daily life. Drawing on the work of Erich Fromm, he further expands on the notion of love, specifically as an approach that fosters applied skillfulness in relationships as an antidote to narcissism. Expanding further, he draws on Matthieu Ricard’s (2015) work on altruism, based in research on its roots in prosocial behavior rather than as moral idealism or superiority.
Einer verbreiteten These folgend wird von alternativ-spirituellen Akteuren keine Änderung der gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse angestrebt, wesentlich sei hingegen die Arbeit an der eigenen Identität im Dienst der >Selbstverwirklichung< (vgl. Lasch 1980, List 1988, Bellah et al. 1996). Die Verantwortung für Probleme und deren Lösungen würden dem Einzelnen aufgebürdet und die komplexen Zusammenhänge von (scheinbarer) Selbstbestimmung und internalisierten gesellschaftlichen Ansprüchen blieben verdeckt. Das heutige spirituelle Feld sei marktförmig strukturiert und statt gemeinschaftlicher Beziehungsformen würden flüchtige Begegnungen zwischen unabhängigen Transaktionspartnern vorherrschen (vgl. Hero 2010). Die Individualisierungsthese (vgl. Beck 1986, Beck & Beck-Gernsheim 2002) bildet den theoretischen Bezugsrahmen für diese oftmals als Kritik vorgebrachten Annahmen. Anhand der für die alternative Spiritualität wichtigen Ansätze von Erich Fromm und Marylin Ferguson werden die beschriebenen Ansichten in der vorliegenden Arbeit relativiert. Inwiefern die in den exemplarischen Selbstzeugnissen formulierten Ansprüche tatsächlich eingelöst wurden und auch für das heutige alternativ-spirituelle Milieu handlungsleitend sind, kann Gegenstand weiterführender Forschungen sein.
弗洛姆在其《逃避自由》一书中认为>逃避自由<表现了人类普遍的病态心理,造成了病态的社会,而且贯穿了当代资本主义的整个进程。他想要表达的主题是:逃避孤独,放弃自由。他认为孤独和自由是一对双生胎儿,逃避孤独和追求自由一样,都深深的植于人的本性中。当二者发生冲突时,人们启动了逃避心理机制,逃避孤独的同时也放弃了自由。但这种逃避在理论上是行不通的,实践也证明这种逃避不仅是失败,更是一种灾难。通过学习弗洛姆在社会微观层面上的心理学分析与马克思在社会宏观层面上的社会批判及建构之间找到寻找自由的契合点,不仅能够加强我们对马克思自由观的科学性的认识,也能增强我们对整个人类自由解放的信心,力求树立正确的自由观,实现人的全面发展。
The problem of alienation has been a persistent issue of man since the beginning of civilization and it has been discussed in the history of philosophy since beginning. But as a serious issue the problem of alienation come in to existence after the development of industrialization and technology in a mass scale. Some twentieth century thinkers, philosophers, psychologist, sociologist, and religious scholars prescribed the way to come out from alienation. But in contemporary philosophy the existentialists took the issue of alienation most seriously. They gave their own approach on this issue and propagate a humanistic point of view as a way to come out from alienation. They try to make the philosophy free from the clutches of objectivity and bring the man in center again. Other contemporary western philosophers also influenced by existential movement. For them also the problem of alienation is a serious issue especially the famous philosopher and psychologist Erich Fromm. Fromm observes that in twentieth century man finds himself in a highly mechanical culture dominated by technology. Because of over use and emphasis on technology man becomes alienated from his own personal being. Both existentialists and Erick Fromm believes that man’s subjectivity is lost in the highly technical and mechanical contemporary world. The main issue for these thinkers is not only to understand the concept of alienation but to find out the ways to eliminate the alienation. Through which a human can understand his true being and meaning of life. This is a descriptive paper. The objective of the paper is to explore the issue of alienation in contemporary world and to suggest the ways to come out from the alienation with special reference to Existentialism and Erick Fromm.