Presents overview of Erich FROMM's theory of human development with special emphasis on the origin of basic human needs, reciprocal interaction between these needs, and sociocultural structures that mold social character. Describes different types of social character in terms of socioeconomic structures that produce them. Describes features of good society and specifies implications for counselors.
The Colored Woman's Office
(1993)
The Looking-Glass Self
(1993)
Starting with three examples showing different kinds of external barriers which meet a woman in her professional life, the author examines how they are related to internal elements. She points out power as a common factor, and proposes that Freud, as well as many succeeding male and female psychoanalysts, wishfully described women as suffering from deficiencies, while the unconscious image of Mother in children and adults of both sexes is the very opposite of this: a potentially dangerous or ideally good, powerful creature. She argues that both men and women out of fear for this power try to restrict and belittle the capabilities of women. This thesis is further delineated by references to Greek mythology and clinical examples.
Das dialogische Prinzip und die Suizidpraevention [The dialog principle and suicide prevention
(1993)
Die Bedeutung des dialogischen Prinzips für die Suizidprävention wird herausgearbeitet. Im Anschluss an eine Skizzierung psychoanalytischer und verhaltenstherapeutischer Suizidtheorien wird das dialogische Prinzip bei Martin Buber verdeutlicht. Im Umgang mit Suizidanten wird eine Ich-Es-Beziehung für unzureichend, eine Ich-Du-Beziehung für hilfreich erachtet. Ausgehend von den von Erich FROMM diskutierten Konzepten der Biophilie und Nekrophilie wird empfohlen, die noch vorhandenen Stärken von suizidalen Klienten zu unterstützen.
The case of Anna presented by Professor Giliberti is discussed from an interpersonal perspective. Attention is given to Anna's real experiences of hypocrisy, social inadequacy, hatred and blame projection. Paranoid aspects are emphasized and seen as connected with a disparity between appearance and reality in the communicative pattern of the family.
Liebe ist unvermeidlich – ein Besuch im Zentrum für experimentelle Gesellschaftsgestaltung ZEGG
(1993)
>Links between Work, Character, and Education<: The transformational processes presently occurring in the techno-economic bases of industrial life are, inevitably enough, accompanied by changes in social character. Though the significance of work for character formation has declined as other influences have moved to centerstage, >work< still remains an important dimension by which human beings define and anchor themselves in the world. Indeed, this >anchoring through work< allows the characterological status quo in the present to be read off. This essay takes the Frommian concept of social character as its departure point, asking what work experiences lead to what character structures and also what work ethic results from these characterological features. An analysis is given of the social-characterological conditions necessarily imported by workers into their job situations, simply in order to break even in an evolving industrial labor process marked by structural unemployment. More stringent vocational requirements, plus an increased release from the coercion of having to work for one's daily bread, pose a real danger for one's psychic balance and make flexibility an imperative. If the identity crisis brought on by the deprivation of work is to be mastered, new vocational outlets must be developed that are removed from financial remuneration and accountability – as an alternative to work in the traditional sense. At the same time, jobs and wages need to be uncoupled and a society-wide minimum income guaranteed. These transformational processes are giving rise to a >post-industrial character structure< principally characterized, in its productive variants, by flexibility andsocial competence; moreover, its behavior patterns are loosened up by quality-orientated, diversified job (or other vocational) requirements capable of appealing to the whole person.
Presents a case study of a 30-yr-old man treated for narcissistic personality disorder and attempts to show how further contributions to an alternative approach to psychoanalysis can come from E. FROMM. FROMMian themes are all present in the case in varying degrees. It is suggested that the 2 main features of this case (narcissism and homosexuality) were the outcome of a pathological symbiosis with both parents. Eight themes, drawn both from FROMM's published works and from his unpublished writings, are stressed, including benign vs malignant aggression, having vs being, homosexual and incestuous symbiosis, and secret family narcissism.
>Psychoanalytic Considerations on the Defences from Confrontation with the Stranger<: The conscious and unconscious are qualities of the contents of the psyche attributed, for the most part, to social processes, that are themselves unconscious. In this way the conscious area is largely an illusion. The total man, from the most distant past to the potential future, remains unconscious. One is a member of society, but also member of the human race and, as such, citizen of the world. Humanism is the antithesis of all xenophobic nationalism, all racism and all prejudiced thought. The repression of emotions, sentiments and thoughts which strike the family harmony are part of a strategy of survival adopted by the individual from the start of infancy. The operation of estrangement begins from oneself in order to conform with the family and social environment. Ostracism is avoided by directing it towards repressed and split parts of oneself and towards all aspects on the outside to which those parts allude, according to the defence mechanisms of identifiaation with the aggressor and the projection. Not only is >primordial man< estranged, but also and above all man in his potentiality of development, the >new man< who has overcome narcissism and the symbioticincestuous attachment. The revolutionary character is the strangest of all in today's Western society. The Author supports these positions by the analysis of two dreams and by a brief history of witch hunt.
Socicty as a Human Product
(1993)
Art, War, and Fascism
(1993)
The profound psychic differences between the two human sexes are also reflected in their diverse psychopathology, even though the basic clinical forms remain common for both. In this study the problem of the psychoanalytic difference between the two sexes is discussed within the framework of psychotic situations; in intrapsychic relationships with the mother and the father, and between the patient and the therapist and with his sex. The problem of masculine and feminine psychosexuality is furthermore seen in a different light, in accordance with its pre- or postoedipal configuration.
The term psychotic crisis should be understood not only as an acute psychopathological syndrome occurring in the whole spectrum of psychoses, but also as a crisis that may occur in a healed patient facing difficulties in everyday life, or as a sudden change in a long and monotonous psychotherapy. The therapeutical duty often consists in >teaching<the patient to forget the urgency of the situation, as a condition for a serious work on himself. >Urgent intervention<by the therapist should be differentiated from >direct intervention<. The former requires abandoning of the classical setting of verbal encounter, whereas >direct interventions< even if urgent and different from the usual psychoanalytic interventions, do not imply a change in the setting. I use this method only with psychotic patients in a situation of crisis. It implies >progressive overturnings< i.e. changing the situation of the patient in a positive direction by images arising from our therapeutic unconscious as a >projection< of the therapeutical imago. Usually they are verbal, but here I will show graphic and what I call >transforming< images. The >overturnings< are here summarized as 1. The overturning of autism into a one-to-one relationship 2. the overturning of repression into integration 3. the overturning of the destructive splitting into individuation.
Woman as Other
(1993)
Semiological Prospects
(1993)
Presents a case study of a 30-yr-old man treated for narcissistic personality disorder and attempts to show how further contributions to an alternative approach to psychoanalysis can come from E. FROMM. FROMMian themes are all present in the case in varying degrees. It is suggested that the 2 main features of this case (narcissism and homosexuality) were the outcome of a pathological symbiosis with both parents. Eight themes, drawn both from FROMM's published works and from his unpublished writings, are stressed, including benign vs malignant aggression, having vs being, homosexual and incestuous symbiosis, and secret family narcissism.