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It has been over 70 years since Erich Fromm wrote >Escape from Freedom<. He defined two type of freedom: FREEDOM FROM (negative) and FREEDOM TO (positive). Fromm's masterpiece, however, does not measure the two types of freedom, and this is not surprising – there were no freedom data at the time. Now, there are plenty of data, and Fromm's concepts of freedom can be operationalized across countries. The two types of freedom, positive and negative, correlate at below 0.5, and such low correlation is surprising – I discuss outliers and point out that freedom is an end in itself, as recognized, for instance, by Amartya Sen. Furthermore, while we acknowledge the importance of FREEDOM FROM, we forget that FREEDOM FROM is not fully realized without FREEDOM TO: it's great to be free; but it's even better to feel free as well.
Herzog is one of the most successful novels written by the Jewish Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow. Herzog, the protagonist of the novel, has experienced a spiritual and emotional collapse, triggered by the breakup of his second marriage and his contemplation of the wasteland of modern life. In the novel, he has divorced twice respectively because he is bored and boring. The characteristics of the two ex-wives are in sharp contrast. Deep analysis of the two women and their marital relationships with Erich Fromm’s theory can facilitate our understanding of the novel, the writer as well as the modern world.
>Each Individual is a Surprise< is a brief account of a dialogue between Marianne Horney Eckardt and myself about the state of psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytic process, the danger of idolatry, the damaging impact of psychoanalytic schools when they create a standardized and pathologizing approach to people, the value of curiosity and humility and retaining one’s clinical creativity. The role of Rank, Horney, Sullivan, and Fromm in Dr. Eckardt’s long life and rich work is touched upon.
Erich Fromm (1900–80)
(2014)
This paper addresses the problem of social psychology and the political regime in North Korea through the sociopsychological theory of humanist psychoanalyst Erich Fromm. Since humanist psychoanalysis has not been systematically applied in academic discussion on North Korean politics and society, the author outlines Fromm’s neo-Marxist/neo-Freudian perspective in conjunction with observations on eroding totalitarianism and patricentrism, group narcissism and anxiety, official ideology, internalized authority and women, the revolutionary façade, and dream analysis as a relevant component of a social psychology of North Korea.
This paper explores the possibility that consideration of Fromm's social character is relevant not only to an improved understanding of the collective unconscious of an entire community, but also to the clinical practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy with individuals. In doing so it attempts to extend Fromm's ideas about the intersectionality of psychoanalysis and sociology beyond the realm of social theory. The paper centers around the description of the psychodynamic treatment of an adult female whose psychological problems are thought to be partly the result of her social character, which was internalized during her formative years but whose impact remains apparent in light of her choice of ego defenses and general way of relating to and understanding the world.
While alienation is an ancient human phenomenon, largely because of the social-economic structure of American society, its pervasiveness and extensiveness today is unrivaled in all of history. This, at least was the view of a popular social critic and psychoanalyst, Erich Fromm. In his analysis this market-oriented society had produced almost totally alienated men. Alienation characterized their relationship to their work, to the things they consumed, to the State, to their fellow men and even to themselves. 2 Everyone and everything was thus treated as commodities whose values depended on their exchange values on the personality and commodity market. 3 Therefore, being in demand was held to be the supreme value by alienated man, and as a result he was another-directed man, a conformist, a slave to irrational authority. It was as his most comprehensive solution to this moral and social predicament that Fromm made the concept of man’s realization of his intellectual, emotional, and sensuous potentialities the foundations in his theory of the good. [Taken from University's Website: http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/31579]
Erich Fromm argues that the only reliable way to solve the environmental crisis is to alter current social formations in a way in which biophilia can flourish, so humankind can solve its existential dichotomy as well as meet survival needs in an ecologically sound way. However, society's preoccupation with the non-alive-elements such as technique, the mechanical, gadgets, and commodities – shows that the modern social character is far from biophilous. Instead, modern societies are inherently ecologically destructive due to systematic processes and attraction to its progress is a less acute form of, what Fromm terms, necrophilia. His insights can help formulate a social theory of environmental degradation that includes structural and ideational variables. Prescriptively, this means appeals for value changes must correspond with fitting appeals for structural changes in social systems.
In >The Revisionist Psychoanalysis<, Adorno criticizes the neo-Freudian psychoanalysis for losing the critical edge of Freud’s theory with regard to social critique. Neo-Freudians whom Adorno calls >revisionists< criticize Freud for his >mechanical< views of the human psyche and for his over-emphasis on sexual libido. They reverse Freud’s dictum – >where id was, there ego shall be< – by stressing the importance of development of the ego, and thus that of its adaptive functions. For revisionists, the aim of psychoanalytic practice is to help analysands be better adapted to their social environment. According to Adorno, the revisionist psychoanalysis is suspected of conformism, and implicitly advocating an ideology that what is existent is the best of all possible worlds. The emphasis on adaptation actually weakens the ego instead of strengthening it – leaving it vulnerable to the whim of social conditions, and that of instinctual impulses. Most importantly, it weakens individuals’ ability to think critically and makes them susceptible to ideological and psychological manipulation against their own rational interests.
Well before the now flourishing field of animal studies, the thinkers associated with Frankfurt, Germany’s Institute of Social Research theorized and problematized society’s troubling relationship with animals. Early critical theory explored the various manifestations of >unrelenting exploitation< animals have experienced in human societies and maintained that the domination of animals is intimately linked to the domination of human beings, especially of women and racial and ethnic minorities. They criticized Western thought for instrumentalist attitudes toward animals and were committed to extending compassion to animals. Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse mount four challenges to sociologists today: (1) to unmask the shared forms of domination experienced by both animals and marginalized human beings, (2) for environmental sociologists to make animals a principle subject of investigation, (3) for sociological animal studies scholars to engage with philosophy, and (4) to adopt a critical and normative sociological perspective when studying human–animal relations.
The ideology of psychotherapy is questioned through critical concepts taken from the Freudo-Marxist tradition. The paper first analyses in detail six determinant ideological processes detected in psychotherapy that three pioneers of Freudo-Marxism criticised in the 1920s: dualistic scission and metaphysical immobilisation (Luria); idealist generalisation and mechanistic determination (Bernfeld); and repressive adaptation and historical decontextualisation (Reich). Following this, it briefly reviews seven paired analogous processes that were denounced by continuators of the Freudo-Marxist tradition: valorative moralisation and the psychologisation of the social (Fenichel); instinctual–rational deprivation and the mechanisation of the subject (Adorno); alienating performance and surplus repression (Marcuse); manipulation and dehumanising alienation (Fromm); abstraction and mythologising (Bleger); authoritarianism and suggestion (Caruso); and depoliticisation and rationalisation (Langer). The argument will show how Freudo-Marxist questionings of these operations – many now forgotten – are still current and can be inspiring and enriching for a modern critique of psychotherapy.
Of all the great dualities of human experience, >good and evil< have been the most instrumental in shaping the beliefs, rituals, and laws of >Homo sapiens<. The polarization of our nature into >good and bad< and anthropomorphic externalizations of these impulsions have been with us for millennia, providing inspiration for magical rites, representational forms, and the cornucopia of dramas, narratives, and artworks to which they give expression. Furthermore, whereas all religions advocate for good, the particular narratives of evil underlying the traditions of Western culture come to us from the Bible. However, good and especially evil are theological and moral, not psychological, constructs. With Freud's death instinct, and later Fromm's necrophilous character, the darker shadow of human nature became definitively secularized. After an introduction and historical/developmental overview of select theorists, this paper adopts a strictly psychoanalytic frame of reference in the exploration of what renders some human beings capable of doing inhuman things. Looking at behaviors manifesting through the psychodynamics of character structure and severe personality disorders, the breakdown of empathy and defacement of the >other< in the creation of an enemy is discussed. In conclusion two clinical portraits are offered, illustrating how primitive emotions and defenses, superego pathology, and latent schizoid, narcissistic, and projective mechanisms provide fuel and rationalization for malignant aggressive, duplicitous, and sadistic behaviors.
Travel as Qualitative Method: Travel in Psychology’s History and in Medard Boss’ Sojourn to India
(2014)
This article details the history, possibility, limits, and ethics of cross-cultural travel as a qualitative method in psychology. The article provides a brief overview of the ambiguous relationship between psychology and culture and develops an account of the history of travel methods in psychology. It then analyzes an exemplary case of travel research involving Medard Boss’ sojourn to India and his encounters with Indian sages. This article argues that the history of psychology is, in many ways, a history of the exiled, the dispossessed, and the traveler (e.g., Freud, Fromm, Fanon, Jahoda, Rogers, Jung, and others). The article concludes with reflections on using travel methods in an increasingly globalized world and in an ecologically sensitive way.