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Haben oder Sein: Leben statt Profit! Was mache ich aus dem, was die Gesellschaft aus mir macht?
(2023)
Hard lessons: (Critical) Management Studies and (Critical) Work and Organizational Psychology
(2023)
This short paper explores what lessons Critical Work and Organizational Psychology (CWOP) might learn from the rise of Critical Management Studies (CMS) thirty years ago. I begin by exploring the conditions of possibility for CMS, before providing a history of how it grew and institutionalized. Despite its >success<, I describe how partial, parochial and positional it was, and open a gap between its achievements within some Business Schools and its relative invisibility outside them. I conclude with some challenges for CWOP, in the spirit of learning from CMS.
Having introduced readers to the history of the reception of psychoanalysis in Italy, the author reconstructs the history of the Italian reception of the work of Harry Stack Sullivan (1892–1949) and Stephen A. Mitchell (1946–2000). Sullivan’s work played a fundamental role in adding to the >new Italian psychiatry,< founded by Franco Basaglia (1824–1980), the psychodynamic dimension it lacked, creating a new convergence between the social and psychological dimensions of psychiatry. Mitchell’s work played a fundamental role in the development of the Italian tradition of psychoanalytic psychotherapy originally articulated by Gaetano Benedetti (1920–2013) and Pier Francesco Galli, following their reception of Sullivan’s work. This phenomenon coincided, from an institutional point of view, with the emergence of a network of Italian institutes and societies affiliated to the International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies, which had been originally cofounded by the William Alanson White Institute – the institute founded by Sullivan in 1943, where Mitchell himself trained as a psychoanalyst at the end of the 1970s. Interpersonal and relational psychoanalysis also ended up finding a place in the work of several colleagues of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society, as well as allowing the foundation of several institutes and societies affiliated to the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. The author reconstructs this chapter of Italian psychoanalysis from both a historiographical and a personal point of view.
Human Relationships and Mental Health. Insights and Findings from Erich Fromm’s time in Mexico
(2023)
In his work, Francesco Corrao has addressed cutting-edge themes developed in psychoanalysis between the 1960s and the 1980s. A contemporary re-reading of his writings offers a valuable opportunity to highlight central themes in today’s psychoanalysis, such as the epistemological approach to the reality of the unconscious, the theory of the drives, countertransference, new and different perspectives on the transference, the centrality of the Oedipus complex, and the way in which digital technology has affected both culture and psychoanalysis. It seems particularly noteworthy that, while on the one hand Corrao’s thinking preserves and integrates a part of the more recent contributions, on the other hand it provides a more solid redefinition of the fundamental elements of psychoanalysis, showing both the tensions that emerge from contemporary developments in psychoanalysis and culture, and a number of potential solutions.
Interpretation in a >personal< field perspective (https://doi.org/10.1080/0803706X.2023.2210270)
(2023)
This is a revision and expansion of a classic paper that was first delivered as a speech, in October 1994, for the 10th National Conference of the Italian Psychoanalytical Society, and then published as a chapter of the seminal book >Emozione e Interpretazione. Psicoanalisi del campo emotivo< [Emotion and interpretation. Psychoanalysis of the emotional field], edited in 1997 by Eugenio Gaburri.
The societal changes of the last century, especially in the aftermath of World War II, have led thinkers to imagine philosophical anthropology centered on the concept of hope. From very different perspectives, authors such as Ernst Bloch, Erich Fromm, and Hannah Arendt understood that hope is deeply connected with the condition and destiny of humanity. Various sociologists have developed concepts closely linked with hope: action, social change, utopia, revolution, emancipation, innovation, and trust. However, a coherent and systematic analysis is yet to emerge. Taking up the threads of this rich but fragmented reflection, this paper intends to outline the traits of a >sociology of hope< as a tool for critically interpreting today’s society and the processes of change crisscrossing it, starting from some crucial questions: Who are the actors and historical bearers of hope? What are the main socio-historical forms of hope? What social, political, and cultural conditions favors the emergence and strengthening of this disposition? What are the effects and consequences on personal and social life?
This article explores the relevance of the life and works of Kiyoshi Miki (1897 – 1945), a Japanese philosopher, to Maslovian humanistic psychology. Although Miki and Maslow differ in many respects, they shared a few common points that are important to examine. In his early articles, Miki equated philosophy with confessions of the soul and argued that individuality was impossible within the traditional framework of logic. His first main work on Pascal’s anthropology was an attempt to assimilate and synthesize the German existential/hermeneutic and the French moralist traditions he had learned in Europe in the early 1920s. Despite pioneering works by Wilhelm Reich and Erich Fromm, humanistic psychology has not exhausted the potentialities of Marxism. Maslow and other intellectuals sympathetic to this materialist philosophy were mutually disappointed. However, Maslow’s enlightened or eupsychian management may be an important step toward social revolution, compensating for a missing psychological viewpoint in traditional Marxism. Miki’s hermeneutic approach to this ideology offers two important points relevant to humanistic psychology: his concept of basic experience – later called Pathos – as the basis of any ideology, and the distinction between dialectic and organicism. His last years, during the War and fascism, raise important questions regarding what talented, self-actualizing intellectuals can do without freedom of speech and expression under a totalitarian and authoritarian regime. Finally, this article addresses how well Miki’s concept of utopia – on which he wrote an essay in the context of a dark age—corresponds to Maslow’s idea of eupsychia.
While respecting the ontological assumption of the unconscious, the author systematically critiques the concept of the death drive. It clashes with the dictates of contemporary biology, disrupting communication between disciplines. In clinical application, the death drive as metaphor demonstrates little utility. It also invites reductionism, risking oversimplification of extremely complex phenomena like aggression. Perhaps most importantly, the construct places the entire psychoanalytic project, already in an existential crisis, in peril. The author briefly introduces a complex alternative view of aggression, driven solely by eros but involving many complicated intrapsychic, interpersonal, and sociocultural factors. He suggests the death drive, however thoughtfully utilized, hinders the forward movement of psychoanalysis for reasons of consilience, incommensurability, clinical utility, cross-disciplinary communication, and political survival.
The aim of the research is to discover effective tools to support and educate caregivers in the face of difficult situations, including from an ethical point of view, such as moral distress. A literature review devoted to the link between moral behavior and neuroscience was performed. Subsequently, the main models of Coaching with Ethical purposes were studied, as a progressive detachment from the Coaching model linked to Performance. Once the affinities were established, a philological research was carried out among the main authors of Humanistic Ethics to identify the authentic roots of a Health Coaching aimed at defining the fundamental principles of an enhancement of Well-being.
Learning >in the Hive<: >Social Character< and Student Wellbeing in the Age of Psychometric Data
(2023)
Growing societal concern about a crisis in the wellbeing of young people has prompted a range of responses from governments and corporations, predicated on an ideal of the resilient, self-reliant individual. Behavioural economists, data scientists and educational technology companies now offer a variety of psychological interventions based on psychometric data, aimed at ‘equipping’ individual students with the necessary skills and character to enable them to withstand the pressures of contemporary life. As a consequence, the critical importance of mutually supportive interpersonal relationships continues to be neglected in mainstream approaches to Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). This article draws on Fromm’s theory of social character and Zuboff’s analysis of >life in the hive< to challenge the assumptions about human behaviour underpinning data science and its application in digital tools for social and emotional learning and self-managed wellbeing. To improve students’ wellbeing, we need to begin with an understanding of why they are more likely to thrive within a network of mutually supportive social relationships than a digital >hive<.
To maintain complex civilisation within planetary boundaries, we must secure a whole >system of systems< transformation of our activities. In this article, based on the lecture notes for my keynote speech at the International Conference on Critical and Radical Humanist Work and Organizational Psychology, I explore the ethical dimensions of making organisations that can help us improve our collective decision-making and at the same time become persons whose acting and being is consistent with the sustainability imperative. I outline a human capability for ethical organising which is directed towards making organisations that generate life-value, or those resources by which we cultivate the relational and material conditions for stewarding and sustaining all living beings and things. The >value of meaningfulness< and >mutuality as an organising principle< afford conversion factors for translating our general >will to form< into a human capability for ethically desirable organising. Meaningful work provides action contexts for people to discover, protect and develop values that matter to them. The moral value of meaningfulness is also productive for breaking into vicious cycles of corporate alienation that prevent the emergence of organisations as collective moral agents, characterised by integrity and empathy. I conclude that we need a fresh democratic dispensation – one that covers our associational life across all fields of endeavour.
O poczuciu bezradności
(2023)
On Fromm's Virtue Ethics
(2023)
Fromm’s ethics can be viewed as a form of virtue ethics, which emphasizes the importance of developing one’s true self and reducing one's false self. By doing so, one can change their psychological state in terms of character and psychological tendencies, leading to an improved moral life and higher moral standards. While some criticisms have been raised about virtue theory, including its perceived inability to guide one on how to act properly, Fromm's virtue ethics is unique in that it does not focus on establishing universal rules for specific actions. Instead, it seeks to establish universal laws for human behavioural tendencies or trends. Through his unique social psychology, Fromm provides an in-depth analysis of the inner world of man, which can serve as a valuable guide to the general direction of human development and freedom. In addition, Fromm’s virtue ethics also highlights the importance of social relationships and the impact they have on our moral development. He argues that our relationships with others can have a profound effect on our psychological state and our ability to live virtuously. Overall, Fromm’s virtue ethics provides a unique perspective on human development and morality. By focusing on the development of one’s true self and the importance of social relationships, his approach offers a valuable guide to living a fulfilling and virtuous life.
The >Buddhist< culture itself, as a subculture, is usually characterized by the coexistence of rationality and sensibility and the coexistence of aggressiveness and anxiety. The choice of “Buddhist” life for college students is an escape to a certain extent. They leave their families and come to a relatively free university. A sense of loneliness and powerlessness is generated, which leads them to defend themselves to relieve pressure, thus the psychological phenomenon of >escape from freedom< appears. However, there is a certain pragmatism while escaping. This seemingly free and easy >Buddha system< Mentality actually has a negative impact on the subjective well-being of college students. In Fromm’s view, freedom has dual meanings. These college students who advertise as >Buddhist youth< are in the predicament of freedom. However, in reality, some college students choose to escape from negative freedom to overcome their inner loneliness. This paper analyzes this phenomenon based on Fromm’s >Escape from Freedom<, and attempts to propose a path to achieve positive freedom and help college students pursue positive freedom. [Translation: www.cnki.net, 4/2023]
Psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy have evolved deeply over the past half century. This paper shows some the changes I have witnessed in them, and the challenges we face in this change of era, at the edge of the first quarter of the twenty-first century. Some the challenges are examined: knowing how to transmit in our daily practice the essential relationality of the human being; the relational essence of the process of change through psychotherapy; and a review of our contribution to our institutions being genuinely relational, that is, that we take more care of the space that the Other can inhabit than of preserving our own. We need hope: the hope to change and (again) be people, in connection with others, regaining confidence and being able to be ourself (to be ourselves with others). That is the meaning of our activity, what it is to be a psychoanalyst/psychotherapist today.
One of the many divisions of security exposed in the literature dealing with it is the ambivalent division into positive and negative security, which sometimes, somehow combined and mutually limiting, manifest themselves in normal and real security. Starting from this distinction, I develop their descriptions based on Erich Fromm’s explanations of a healthy, sick, and normal society. Simultaneously, I argue that sick societies pursue negative security by preferring war and destruction, while healthy societies pursue positive security by preferring love, peace, and creative activity. It is a preference based on striving, in the case of a healthy society and positive security, >to be<, as Fromm states, and in the case of a sick society and negative security, >to have<, and finally, in the case of normal security, to mutually limiting >to have< and >to be<. I deepen this description by referring to the thought of Bertrand Russell, in which positive and good security is defined >as one that should be by itself<, and negative and bad >as one that should not be by itself<. On the other hand, by bolding and broadening this description, I associate positive security (based on >to be<) with the concept of >civilisation of love<, >civilization of life<, and >civilization of brotherhood<, while negative security (embedded in >to have<) with >civilisation of killing<, >civilisation of overkilling<, and >civilisation of death<, and finally, normal security (embedded on mutually limiting >to be< and >to have<) with the liberal civilisation of security and control.
To understand contemporary forms of social organization it is not enough to know the geopolitics that currently pertain; it is also necessary to enter the field of micropolitics and, particularly, the affections and sensibility modes that sustain the construction of social ties. In this field, psychoanalysis provides fundamental contributions to understand both the possibilities of adherence to forms of government and sociability, and as well as the construction of emancipation projects that aim to transform them. Different affections and sensibility modes will differently build social and political life. In distinguishing the language of passion from the language of tenderness, Ferenczi did not intend to have a political discussion, but we can use these notions to think about the current possibilities of political coexistence. Tenderness is the child's form of sensitivity, but also that of relationships of solidarity through dispossession. In this sense, the language of tenderness refers to the notion of vulnerability theorized by Judith Butler. It is not about defending a puerility or naivety, but a force of non-violence that, when affirmed, creates the possibility of a less unequal, fairer political coexistence, especially in countries immersed in a culture of hate such as Brazil.
Poczucie bezsilności
(2023)
Politics, psychoanalysis, and large group identity (https://doi.org/10.1080/0803706X.2023.2234682)
(2023)
Since Freud's contributions, psychoanalysis has devoted attention to group phenomena in the field of politics. Volkan and Kernberg stand out today for providing conceptual tools for analyzing political reality. Politicians' work has historically included a share of group manipulation, but today a strong trend towards populism is emerging from the right and the left. This offers a unique opportunity to examine in detail how leaders often promote primitive group dynamics, close to borderline personality organizations. The war in Ukraine offers an opportunity for a psychoanalytic exploration of unconscious conflicts. Some leaders' biographies and actions may offer clues, as well as group phenomena that express the need to protect a valuable identity. The current situation has generated an identity crisis in Europe and beyond. Autocratic tendencies have become stronger and we have lost leaders who sustained a more adult, less primitive European identity. The possible solutions lie in the abandonment of infantile maximalist positions and the adoption of a painful, frustrating, slow – and healthy – integrative attitude, perceiving nuances and shades of gray, both in our own group and in that which we consider Other. Psychoanalysis has the responsibility to put its knowledge at the service of society, also in politics.
Postawa kreatywna
(2023)
This article, based on the author’s keynote speech at the first International Conference on Critical and Radical Humanist Work and Organizational Psychology at the University of Innsbruck, draws on radical humanist theorizing on human productivity and the >pathology of normalcy< in demon-strating the importance of the contribution of Erich Fromm as a basis for Critical Psychology . The sociologist and psychoanalyst Erich Fromm (1900-1980) developed a social psychological method, the special significance of which is that it explicitly captures unconscious motivations and impulses. This makes it possible to identify strivings and behaviors, as well as common values and thought patterns, which, from a humanistic perspective, represent socially patterned mental >defects<. Based on Fromm’s concept of social character, what is perceived as >normal< and >reasonable< in a given society can be exposed as a potential >pathology of normalcy<. After briefly outlining major con-cerns of the project of Critical Psychology, Erich Fromm's social-psychoanalytical approach is in-troduced. The following sections are dedicated to the significance of character formation for ex-plaining social behavior, social repression and socially patterned defects. Next, some indications will be given regarding the meaning of human productivity according to Erich Fromm. Subsequently, the pathogenic impacts of social character orientations will be illustrated based on the exemplary types of the authoritarian and the contemporary marketing social character. The article concludes with a short summary of Erich Fromm’s contribution to Critical Psychology.
During the lockdown, we, as analysts, had to face new situations, which disrupted our habitual mode of working and challenged our ability to adapt. I discovered that having a supportive relationship among colleagues became more important than ever. I will discuss the influence that the transition from in-presence sessions to the online modality during the pandemic has had on the therapeutic process and setting. The adoption of new relational working procedures instead of the usual in-person session has revived the centrality of those themes having to do with the body and sensoriality in psychoanalysis, including the possibility of recognizing and integrating dissociated embodied traumatic experiences, ones that are non-verbalized, and not able to be verbalized. I will outline a clinical case to detail the difficulties encountered in my clinical practice, in which the contingency strategy, based on working remotely, continued to guarantee that sense of security necessary to enable the possibility of dreaming together and freely exploring – introducing, however, within the relationship, aspects of Ferenczi and Rank’s >active technique,< which would not have occurred in person, and which certainly impacted the process in a different way, while always permitting the identification and assimilation of dissociated experiences.
The Institut für Psychoanalyse Zürich-Kreuzlingen (IfP) was founded as a working group in 1972. Its founder Norman Elrod graduated from the Carl-Gustav-Jung-Institute in Zurich and followed a politically and philosophically reflected psychoanalysis. In addition, he was engaged in the treatment of psychotic patients. Quite a few of his co-workers worked in the Psyichiatria Democratica in Italy as well as in institutions in Germany and Switzerland, where they also contributed greatly to psychoanalytically inspired multiprofessional care for severely ill individuals, including forensic patients.
The best way to reconstruct the history of psychoanalytic ideas is to begin from the study not of theories, but of the various authors and their contexts. Important contributions to the study of the ego in Europe had already come from Ferenczi and Fenichel, well before Hartmann founded Ego Psychology (EP), which became mainstream in North America. In Europe, before World War II, significant contributions to what here is called >psychoanalytic ego psychology< (Pep) (contrasted with Hartmann’s EP) came from Anna Freud, Paul Federn, and Gustav Bally. After World War II, contributions came from Alexander Mitscherlich, Paul Parin, and Johannes Cremerius in the German-speaking community, and from Joseph Sandler in the UK. If this is the case, we should then talk of >ego psychologies< in the same way as we talk of the various object relations theories. Pep – as it was described in the guiding principles formulated by Fenichel in the 1930s – keeps informing the clinical work of many psychoanalysts, even if they are not fully aware of it. For example, it represents the basic ingredient of the empirically verifiable >psychoanalytic therapy< formulated in detail by Helmut Thomä and Horst Kächele.
In diesem Artikel wird die Bedeutung Künstlicher Intelligenz (Kl) aus der Perspektive humanistischer Psychologie beleuchtet. Ein besonderer Fokus wird dabei auf das wegweisende Werk von Erich Fromm gelegt. Einleitend wird aufgezeigt, warum das Thema Kl in der Pflege sowohl aus einer pflegewissenschaftlichen als auch psychologischen Perspektive relevant ist. Im Anschluss werden zunächst kritische Perspektiven herausgearbeitet, die sich den Gefahren des verstärkten Einsatzes von Kl für Pflege und Gesellschaft widmen. Dabei wird auf möglich negative Folgen für die Pflege wie z. B. eine Veränderung normativer Standards und eine zunehmende De-Humanisierung hingewiesen. Allerdings kann Kl auch als ein Hoffnungsträger angesehen werden und Unterstützung für die lebenslange Identitätsarbeit von Menschen bieten. Chancen und Risiken für die Identitätsarbeit werden anhand eines Modells hinsichtlich der Dimensionen Authentizität/Kohärenz, Zugehörigkeit/Anerken-nung sowie Kontrolle/Autonomie diskutiert. Abschließend wird ein kurzes Resümee gezogen, in dem die Wichtigkeit betont wird, das sozialwissenschaftlich verankerte Wissen in politische Diskurse und Technikentwicklung einzubringen.
Abidah El Khalieqy dalam karyanya yang berjudul >Geni Jora< menampilkan bentuk rekonstruksi dominasi budaya patriarki yang telah mengubah paradigma terhadap stereotip yang selama ini memenjarakan perempuan dalam penjara dominasi budaya patriarki. Artikel ini bertujuan untuk mengkaji bentuk budaya patriarki dan bentuk rekonstruksi dominasi budaya patriarki melalui upaya pemenuhan kebutuhan dengan menggunakan kajian psikoanalisis Erich Fromm. Data dalam penelitian dianalisis dengan metode deskriptif. Berdasarkan hasil kajian, ditemukan bahwa bentuk budaya patriarki yang muncul dalam novel >Geni Jora< antara lain: (1) stereotip/pelabelan negatif, (2) kekerasan terhadap perempuan, dan (3) subordinasi. Tindakan Kejora untuk merekonstruksi dominasi budaya patriarki tersebut dilakukan dengan upaya pemenuhan kebutuhan yang terdiri dari dua pemenuhan menurut Erich Fromm, yaitu: (1) kebutuhan kebebasan dan keterikatan (keterhubungan, kesatuan, dan pencipta), dan (2) untuk memahami dan beraktivitas (kerangka orientasi dan keefektifan).
Novel berjudul >Kisah yang Pilu untuk Kita yang Ragu< karya Boy Candra menceritakan perjuangan tokoh Salim dalam mengejar cinta Birni. Konflik Salim tersebut dipadukan dengan kehidupan sosial Salim dengan tokoh lain yang mewujudkan berbagai macam bentuk cinta. Hal tersebut menjadi daya tarik novel untuk dikaji menggunakan teori psikologi Erich Fromm. Psikologi sastra pada penelitian ini digunakan untuk mengkaji novel dengan teori psikologi Erich Fromm tentang cinta. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan kelima objek cinta menurut teori psikologi Erich Fromm yaitu cinta sesama, cinta ibu, cinta erotis, cinta diri dan cinta Tuhan yang terdapat di dalam Novel Kisah yang Pilu untuk Kita yang Ragu karya Boy Candra. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah kualitatif dengan pendekatan psikologi sastra. Teknik analisis pada penelian ini adalah deskriptif analisis. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa 1) cinta sesama merupakan wujud dari kepedulian para tokoh sebagai dasar cinta sesama umat manusia; 2) cinta ibu kepada Salim memiliki peran begitu besar pada kehidupannya sebagai seorang anak; 3) cinta erotis tidak selalu tentang sebuah penyatuan melainkan ada unsur kerelaan yang didasari cinta itu sendiri; 4) cinta diri merupakan mencintai diri sendiri dengan mengekspresikannya melalui tindakan perhatian, tanggung jawab, rasa hormat dan pengetahuan terhadap orang lain; 5) cinta Tuhan menggambarkan kepercayaan umat manusia kepada Tuhan yang Maha segalanya. Kelima objek cinta tersebut diwujudkan melalui tindakan para tokoh dalam novel >Kisah yang Pilu untuk Kita yang Ragu< Karya Boy Candra.
This study presents an overview of the development of the main psychoanalytic conceptions regarding safety, an aspect that has received increasing attention within the psychoanalytic literature. After describing the hypotheses of Sigmund Freud, Joseph Sandler, John Bowlby, and Harry Stack Sullivan, the study focuses on the ideas proposed by Joseph Weiss and on control-mastery theory (CMT), a cognitive-dynamic relational theory of mental functioning, psychopathology, and psychotherapy. Unlike other models, CMT stresses that human beings need to feel that both themselves and the people they love are safe; each person, however, may need something different to feel safe. Two clinical vignettes are used to illustrate how the therapist can understand, from the outset of the therapeutic process, how to help the patient feel safe, stressing the case-specific nature of the conditions of safety.
While many psychosocial theorists have drawn on psychoanalysis to explore conscious and unconscious connections between the psychic and the social, most such efforts have been in the realm of >applied psychoanalysis,< that is, the exploration of unconscious process in group relations, institutions, cultures, historical eras. Few, but increasingly more psychosocial psychoanalytic writers are taking up how socially shaped unconscious processes emerge and are worked with in the clinic.– In this chapter, I review some of the psychosocial psychoanalytic theory that has informed clinical work, including the work of Fanon, Fromm, liberation psychologists, psychoanalytic feminist theorists, and critical race theorists. My focus is on how concepts that bridge the psychic and the social, without reducing one to the other, have found their way into clinical theory and practice.– The chapter surveys a few different conceptualizations of what is meant by clinical social psychoanalysis and then focuses more specifically on what I have called >normative unconscious processes,< my own attempt conceptually to bridge these domains. Extending Fromm’s concepts of social unconscious and social character, I argue that a properly psychosocial psychoanalysis must account for the ways that patients’ and therapists’ intersectional social locations (e.g., class, race, gender, sexuality), as they are lived and enacted within particular power relations and histories, unconsciously and consciously emerge in the clinic, at times reproducing, and at times countering what Fromm called the >pathology of normalcy.< Given the current conjuncture, particular attention will be paid to neoliberal subject formations as they are met with in the clinic. The chapter concludes with a review of recent clinical papers that offer ways to counter the reproduction of normative unconscious processes.
Some lineages and resources of Critical and Radical Humanist Work and Organizational Psychology
(2023)
Critical work and organizational psychology is developing on an international scale. Against the background of this evolving scientific field, in this extended version of my opening speech at the first International Conference on Critical and Radical Humanist Work and Organizational Psychology, held from 11th to 13th of July 2022 at the University of Innsbruck, I aim to address the following three questions: (1) What concepts may be relevant for critical work and organizational psychology in analyzing established „mainstream“ (i.e., hegemonic) conceptualizations within work and organizational psychology? (2) Cui bono, critical work and organizational psychology? – To what ethical foundations do (or can) representatives of critical work and organizational psychology refer to when they intend to criticize theory and practice in work and organizational psychology? (3) What do we know about work and organizations beyond domination, subjectification and social alienation? – About fractals of a humanist, socially sustainable economy. Preliminary answers to these questions and implications for the future of critical work and organizational psychology will be discussed.
Because psychology lacks a comprehensive theory of subjectivity that accounts for the entanglement of the social, cultural, historical, interpersonal, and personal, relevant elements for a theory of subjectivity are identified and presented. An important dimension for a theory of subjectivity is the reality of living everyday life, which includes working, relating, as well as self-processes. However, traditional psychology, including philosophical psychology, has neglected the role of work in mental life. It is argued that it is insufficient to address interaction and relationality or internal processes in the development of a theory subjectivity. Using Hannah Arendt’s and Nancy Fraser’s distinctions, it is argued that political-philosophical reflections on work remain important for understanding subjectivity. Consequences for an approach that includes work in a theory of subjectivity are discussed.
Alienation is described as encompassing individual psychological states and types of social relationships. In the context of this study, individuals experience profound feelings of disconnection and estrangement (Kalekin-Fishman, 1998). The objective of this research was to elucidate the diverse causes of alienation depicted in the novel >The Boy in the Striped Pajamas<. Analyzing the reasons for alienation in this literary work could provide deeper insights into how war and human atrocities impact an individual's mental well-being. It also contributed to a more comprehensive understanding of the theme of alienation in literary research. The research employed a literature study approach with a psychological perspective, drawing on Erich Fromm's concept of alienation. The primary data source for this study was the novel >The Boy in the Striped Pajamas< by John Boyne, focusing on character dialogues and the author's narration within the story units. The novel, published on 5 January 2006, consists of 216 pages. To analyze the data, the researcher collected, reviewed, identified, organized, and drew conclusions from the gathered information. The findings of this research reveal various causes of alienation present in the characters of Bruno and Shmuel in the novel. These causes included alienation arising from interactions with other people, alienation resulting from societal factors, and alienation stemming from internal struggles within themselves. The exploration of these aspects shed light on the complex psychological impacts of alienation amidst the backdrop of war and its atrocities in the narrative of >The Boy in the Striped Pajamas<.
The title of this article encapsulates an approach to the notion of the analytic field where the contributions of the Barangers and Bion converge, opening up new perspectives that the author began to explore together with Antonino Ferro in the late 1980s and early 1990s. While the explicit formulation of a bipersonal field model should be credited to the Barangers, it is perhaps less widely known that the term “field” also features in Bion’s writings, with a meaning that is often generic but occasionally bears more specific connotations: for example, when he assimilates the analytic situation into a multidimensional field. In the light of Bion’s theory of thinking, the unconscious dynamics of the analytic field is determined not only by crossed projective identifications, but also by the dream-work of the couple, resulting from the alpha-function of both subjects. Thus, the Barangers’ concept of bastions can be combined with that of functional aggregates (Bezoari and Ferro), understood as animated holograms allowing a shared representation of the ongoing emotional experiences.
The Courage of Disobedience
(2023)
Albert Camus, Emmanuel Levinas, Erich Fromm, Paulo Freire, and Mahatma Gandhi take issue, each in their own way, with the individualism and pessimism of Existentialist philosophy. They also question the ideological complacency and oversimplifications of social evolutionism. While these thinkers disagree on the role of God and rational thought in human affairs, they see courage as an important lever for resisting oppressive systems that undermine people’s freedom, their capacity for self-affirmation, their hopes for lasting peace, and their sense of humanity and ethical responsibility. The critical and progressive stance they take on the ravages of modern-day authoritarianism, colonialism, and imperialism is a world away from Hitler’s heinous call for the >courage of aggression< and the horrors that ensued.
We reflect on the concept of the setting in psychoanalysis, and how it has been radically reconsidered given the impact of the SARS-CoV-19 pandemic on human interactions and moving from face-to-face to online sessions. The rapidity of going from seeking interaction to a fear of possible contagion led some professionals to adopt a sudden change of setting. Although the concept of setting seems to come from the classical Freudian method, Freud never spoke about it explicitly, although it was subsequently developed from his writings. Only in the 1960s and 70s was the setting perceived as the very object of psychoanalytic exploration. Since the psyche in psychoanalysis is conceived as a spatially extended entity, this paper discusses the concepts of space and time (external setting) and the mental state of both the patient and analyst (internal setting). We investigate how these aspects have changed as a result of the use of technology. What changes have taken place at the perceptual level in the patient and analyst? What differences are there with respect to the presence/absence of the other’s body? We use our own reflections of our personal experiences of undergoing face-to-face and online sessions to reveal the differences between them.
At the turn of the twentieth century, curiosity about paranormal events, in particular clairvoyance and telepathy through the state of hypnotic trance, spread widely throughout the Old World and the United States. The investigative interest in this field infected many psychoanalysts, including Freud. This paper intends to examine the pioneering articles which the creators of the psychoanalytical movement in Italy dedicated to this topic. A special place though rightly belongs to Emilio Servadio and to the founding father of Italian psychoanalysis, Edoardo Weiss. Weiss' experiences within the paranormal world are documented in a series of letters, some completely unpublished, which he exchanged with Paul Federn. The A. evaluates this correspondence, with the aim of transposing the discourse onto a theoretical level. Weiss' interpretations of his mediumistic experiences and Servadio's writings on telepathy and on paranormal dreams contains incredibly suggestive observations, which seemed to herald an expansion into the analytic field of the area of exchange between analyst and patient. They sensed some axioms which would only much later be theorised within the inter-subjective psychoanalysis and the field model.
[Chinese abstract not available] Starting from Fromm’s >freedom< theoretical system and based on Marx’s definition of the proletariat, Alice and Laura in >The Blind Assassin< are divided into proletarians objectified by the bourgeoisie. In the capitalist free market economy, Alice, as a representative of the proletariat, shifted her attitude towards freedom from >avoidance< to >pursuit<. Analyze the reasons for her self-awareness from passive avoidance to active pursuit of freedom in the context of the times, and come to the conclusion that in order to escape freedom, she tends towards authority and attachment. Although she can gain a sense of belonging, it also means the extinction of herself. Only by actively pursuing freedom can she truly achieve individual independence and integrity, and shape a healthy life. [Translation: www.cnki.net, 1/2024]
[Chinese abstract not available] The flourish development of scientific psychology in America was often understood as the necessary subsequence of the evolution of intellectual history in psychology, in which psychology separated itself from philosophy and gradually found its own scientific methods during the past centuries. However, as one of categories of culture, the history of psychology could not be understood without the considering of societies and people who live in it. According to Fromm’s social psychological studies, social change may form the social character of a given society, and the social character will initiate new thoughts or ideas which constitutes new culture and ideology. This new kind of culture and ideology will be easy to be accepted by the society, and solidify its social character in turn. So it will be interesting if we explore the process in which psychology in America committed to scientism from the perspective of social change and social character after World War II. There were a lot of changes after World War II in America society in terms of politics, economics, industrial structure, population, education, and belief. On the material level, America reached the so-called advanced industrial society and consumer society. On the mental level, the worship of knowledge gradually replaced the worship of god in America society. These changes formed the social character of America after World War II through pragmatism and individualism that were parts of American culture. The key trait of this kind of social character are one-dimensionality, pursuing of instrumental rationality, and individual priority. What this kind of social character looking forward in terms of psychology as a part of culture and ideology is the disenchantment of inner world, or we can say the secularization of mind, which will offer some kind of certainty for the working of American society.– World War II promoted the development of psychology on general, and also left abundant of problems for America society, such as psychic trauma of veteran, the need for mental health, how to avoid the reviving of totalitarianism, how the collective affect the behavior of individual, and how to train more scientists, professors, and engineers for America and finally win the competition with Soviet Union. All these needs from society led to the boom of clinical psychology, social psychology, developmental and educational psychology, and psychometrics in America. Not only the numbers of APA members and journals, but also the number of PHD in American psychology surged during three decades after World War II. The schools of psychology in America also changed during that time. New behaviorism declined after Hull and Skinner’s time due to its neglect of psyche. Psychoanalysis used to affect American psychology and evolved to ego psychology which could be seen as the product of Americanization. However, psychoanalysis was finally marginalized by scientific psychology in America because of the rise of evidence based medicine. The Third Force Psychology once made a noise in America, but it finally faded due to its attempt to connect psychology and philosophy again, and its complicated methods. It was cognitive psychology that became most popular and the main paradigm of American psychology. In a nutshell, the history of American psychology expressed its social character after World War II which called for the secularization of mind. The scientific psychology in America also plays its ideological role in maintaining the efficient work of American society in turn. [Translation: www.cnki.net, 7/2023]
The characterisation of mass society in a society without God, as a mere mimetic, hypnotic and unstable phenomenon is clearly insufficient. For its rise, so cial, psychological and relational changes had to take place, both among people and between people and their environment. Many scholars in recent times who have tried to explain the phenomenon of mass society have undoubtedly linked it to individualism, especially to one of its characteristics that could be considered specifically modern: loneliness. The study entitled >The Spiral of Silence< is well known, in which Noelle-Neumann, taking up Tocqueville’s classic thesis, highlights the tremendous negative force – as a psychosocial agent – of individual behaviour in the face of social forces. As Erich Fromm forcefully points out: >Feeling completely isolated and lonely leads to mental disintegration, just as starvation leads to death<. The phenomenon of a worldwide pandemic has forced a rethinking of the concept of isolation and loneliness, theoretically displaced by virtual and telematic forms of communication. However, mimetic effects and mass behaviours have not disappeared with isolation, but have been transmuted into new psychological, behavioural and cognitive attitudes.
The Work of Benign Aggression and Negativity Within a Frommian Framework. My Clinical Journey
(2023)
The author is primarily interested in violence in the form of joining Girard's persecution crowd. Thus, the text concerns violence not in the general sense as the use of force to break resistance, nor symbolic violence in the sense of Pierre Bourdieu, but in the sense of human disposition to retaliate and persecution – in other words, violence is analyzed here in terms similar to what Erich Fromm called malignant aggression – the tendency to destroy and gain unlimited control over other people and the world. In the text, the author radicalizes the question about the pedagogical context of violence, treating the tendency to hasty curricular and organizational changes (which often occur after events of escalating violence in schools), as well as the utilitarian search for effective preventive evidence-based measures, as illusions and part of the problem we face with violence. He recognizes that pedagogical reflection must go much deeper. He seeks knowledge about the sources of violence and the cultural formations that foster it in the works of the French anthropologist René Girard and the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka. The ideas of mimetic rivalry and the 20th century as war can give us insight into the phenomenon of violence and suggest the direction of educational transformation. The author conducts the analysis in several steps. After a critical introduction to the contemporary reaction of education to violence, he first outlines Girard's concept of the mimetic mechanism, then emphasizes three ideas present in it (with references to the nowadays): violence as an anthropological feature embedded in the human condition, unawareness of one's own violence and unanimity of the persecuting crowd. In the end, these three accents become the basis for the postulate of existential reorientation of education, based on Patočka's concept of forces of the day and the night.
Consulting has evolved significantly over the years. This is in response to the changing operating environment and the emerging needs of organizations. To enrich client-consultant relationships, this article explores the changing philosophical positions around consulting and some of the applied techniques to make consulting an instrument of help in organizations. To enhance understanding of the varying consulting approaches, the article covers consulting approaches from Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Erich Fromm, and Patrick Trottier. The philosophical positions and insights from their work will support the emerging consultant in deepening transformational consulting. Through a review of the literature and reflecting on the author’s consulting practice, the article summarizes approaches to enhance transformational consulting. These approaches advance the humanistic paradigm and as such promotes the co-creation of solutions with the client system. The article positions the Use of Self and Action Research as fundamental to enriching consultants’ productive impact. In addition, the article highlights four strength-based models that enrich the design of client-centered solutions.
Ungleichheit ist Unfreiheit – über Ueli Mäder. Lobrede zur Verleihung des Erich-Fromm-Preises
(2023)
Vertrauen aufbauen
(2023)
Vita activa
(2023)
What is the real experience of war? How does our mind react to the sudden threats and losses of our lives, homes, and beloved objects? What understandings can it offer to make sense of the atrocities it witnesses? What adjustments can we carry out in these circumstances? Two colleagues from Kharkiv, Ukraine, and affiliated to the Ukrainian Psychoanalytic Study Group and the Institute of the Ukrainian Psychoanalytic Study Group help us to shed light on these questions by sharing their personal experience and understandings of the current war that started on February 24, 2022 when the Russian Federation invaded Ukraine. This contribution aims to report their voices and the emotional experience of encountering their stories in order to provide readers with an unsaturated and unmediated contact with at least some aspects of the reality of war.
Patients probe the analyst with the goal of challenging pathogenic adaptations to early experiences. As the core concept of control mastery theory (CMT), testing is contextualized within psychoanalytic theory. The current work examines 29 articles illustrating therapies performed or analyzed using the CMT approach for the occurrence of testing, which takes place through interaction, self-presentation, narratives, or the use of the setting. The various manifestations of testing and their potential meanings are described. An in-depth analysis of selected testing examples is performed to compare tests within patients and across studies. The results show that patients differ in their testing strategies, shift testing strategy during the process of treatment, combine tests, and test multiple conflictual themes within a single test. Therefore, the importance of applying a case-specific approach, based on a thorough understanding of a patient, becomes evident. Recommendations concerning psychoanalytic technique, including the role of interpretation, as illustrated in case vignettes, are introduced.
Capitalism and its offspring, neoliberalism, are omnipresent in modern and postmodern societies. Illich, Giroux, and McLaren, among others, point to the futility and inequity of current models of education that focus on standardization, vocationalism, and conformity. Running counter to these powerful hegemonic systems, critical pedagogues and educational philosophers such as hooks and Silverman follow philosophers Frankfurt and Wolf in identifying a teaching approach rooted in love. Such an ethic embodies a robust, punk confrontation to potentially damaging, dehumanizing institutional norms perpetrated by current systems of schooling (Hewitt & Smith, 2020). The authors present and discuss vignettes as a duo-ethnographic study of one teacher’s work with a high school choir in Colorado Springs, USA, through which she works to engage young people as compassionate artistic citizens (Elliott & Silverman, 2015; Hendricks 2018). By teaching with love and by modeling love, she teaches young people to love, embracing what Noddings (2005) identifies as an ethic of care. This choral community demonstrates the messy, anarchist ideal that Wright (2019) highlights as a necessary future for music education, wherein the educator diverts from teaching solely to standardized expectations to address the affiliative needs of her students through a love that desires good for her students (Fromm, 1956; Noddings, 2005)
Wola życia
(2023)
Предметом рассмотрения настоящей статьи являются взгляды на феномен конформизма, изложенные в трудах представителей Франкфуртской школы: Макса Хоркхаймера, Теодора Адорно, Герберта Маркузе и Эриха Фромма. Прослеживается трансформация трактовки феномена конформизма в изученных работах. На основании воззрений мыслителей Франкфуртской школы выводятся некоторые закономерности и особенности конформного поведения личности. Автор приходит к выводу, что феномен конформизма можно рассматривать как адаптацию поведения человека к нормам, правилам и установкам, господствующим в обществе. Конформизм в качестве формы социального поведения может быть взаимосвязан и с различными нарушениями в системе социального порядка. Амбивалентность конформизма состоит в том, что конформное поведение может приводить как к конструктивным, так и к деструктивным последствиям. При этом представители Франкфуртской школы сосредоточивают свое внимание главным образом на деструктивной стороне конформизма, давая ему негативную оценку, так как конформистское поведение личности происходит, главным образом, из принуждения. Принужденный к конформизму индивид, не осознающий, ради чего он соглашается с навязанным образом действий, приспосабливается к не понятным и не приемлемым для него общественным установкам, оказывается осуществляющим деструктивную деятельность.
Victor Serge, Erich Fromm y Herbert Marcuse provided some of the first interpretations of Nazi and Soviet totalitarianism. A special feature of their work in early 1940 was to link Marxist and psychoanalytical concepts to understand the rationality underlying Nazism and Stalinism. At the same time, they formulated proposals to renew socialism in a democratic sense. These three authors posited that, beyond political repression and bureaucratic control, totalitarian rule was implemented through a powerful ideological apparatus that had taken root in the individual and collective subconscious. Moreover, they considered that the importance of intellectual work was linked to the psychological mechanisms that sustained the totalitarian phenomenon with the aim of eradicating it.
[Chinese abstract not available] Jesmyn Ward’s third novel, >Sing, Unburied, Sing<, however, is Ward’s second work to have won the National Book Award for fiction. It was >Sing< that laid a solid foundation for Ward’s reception from the American literary circle as a powerful new voice. Sing focuses on a black family in the American south, which was nearly torn apart by poverty, drugs, and racial discrimination; Apart from the estranged kinship in the black family, represented by ghost Richie, the black group in the novel also shows a seemingly strong desire for identity. Based on Erich Fromm’s alienation theory and his theories of love, this paper gives an analysis of the alienation of the protagonist at the level of love and racial identity and focuses on the struggle of the black group to survive in the white mainstream society, which resulted in their dual lack and dual pursuit of love and identity. This paper aims to reveal Ward’s fierce criticism of racist ideology that has caused the double dilemma of survival and spirit of black people in the American South and demonstrate her deep understanding as well as support for the ideals and actions of African Americans in terms of their eagerness to integrate into the mainstream society. [Author's English]
[Chinese abstract not available] Lorraine Hansberry, the first black playwright and the youngest American to win a New York Critics’ Circle award, her >A Raisin in the sun<, opens on Broadway with great success. This paper mainly adopts the Alienation Theory of Fromm to explore her consciousness of reconstructing an inclusive Black Community based on disclosing that the dreams of the black people are distorted into sublime objects constructed by the dominant ideology. Grounded on the three principles from Fromm’s Alienation theory, this paper finds that Hansberry has not only suggested that the elimination of alienation can be achieved by the strong power of family bonds but also highlighted the essential role that the Black tradition plays in the construction of an inclusive Black Community where black people can traverse the ideological fantasy and develop their racial pride. [Author's English]