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Zur Frage nach der analytischen Brauchbarkeit des Begriffs >Gesellschafts-Charakter< bei Erich Fromm
(1993)
>The Analytic Usefulness of the >Social Character< Concept in Erich Fromm’s Thought<: It is a weakness of traditional social research that it is able, at best, to supply accurate descriptions of the social status quo, but is quite at a loss to undertake any serious prognostication worth the name. Erich Fromm, with his theoretical analysis of >social character<, has developed an approach which might just allow us to predict social developments in the making. First, the author shows how the theory of an >authoritarian character<, originally propounded by Erich Fromm in his worker and employee investigations at the end of the twenties, was subsequently expanded and refined by him. By the time Fromm had finished, he possessed a highly differentiated theory of social character. For a researcher to critically scrutinize his own hypotheses is a rare enough undertaking. But just that was what Erich Fromm undertook to do after his relocation to Mexico – by conducting, for this express purpose, a comprehensive case study of a Mexican village. There the great estates had been broken up barely 40 years earlier, at the time of the Revolution, and the land redistributed to the peasants. Fromm wanted to know which expressions of social character would turn out to be readily adaptable and which would prove intractable. The questioning modalities developed by Fromm involving use of an interpretive questionnaire, and especially his methods of interpretation in terms of the biophilia/ necrophilia polarity, were painstaking in the extreme. That is why final publication of the protocolled findings took until 1970 to complete, thirteen years after the start of planning. Apart from the high qualitative and qualificational demands made on interviewers and analysts, the greatest difficulty probably lay in the ease with which related categories could be confused. Notwithstanding, the concept of social character proved an uncommonly fruitful theoretical approach for carrying out studies into a group’s mindsets and ethical qualities.
>The Meaning of Work in a Market Economy<: Work has both an economic and a human value. The latter value is downplayed though in capitalist market economies, since these are based on the expropriation of labor, rather than on the self-fulfillment of the workforce. However, entrepreneurial manipulation of labor as a production factor is today tempered, to an extent at least, by an increased need for social integration within the firm or on the factory floor. From the worker's perspective too, work is not a matter a choice but of hard economic necessity. Most contracted activities performed by workers for remuneration are alienated (on several different levels). The author advances the thesis that proprietors are increasingly discovering an interest in having >self-determined< individuals on their staff. This development is, however, problematic if it means, in concrete terms, that individuals are now expected to internalize formerly external mechanisms of exploitation (a dominance-oriented culture, surveillance, ecological indifference, a technology-heavy approach). Yet this development has another aspect: it could also provide real gains in the struggle for greater onthe- job freedom. Both on the individual and collective level, it could end up giving workers greater room for maneuver.
>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.
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.
Wie human sind die sozialen Berufe? Überlegungen und Strategien zur Humanisierung sozialer Praxis
(1993)
Vorwort – Preface
(1993)
Vorwort
(1993)
Attachment theory, as developed by Bowlby, and empirical research derived from it, beginning with Ainsworth's >Strange Situation< and the correlated home observations, are described. The studies of the transgenerational transmission of patterns and of the internal working models of the relationship, as well as longitudinal studies, are reported. The main focus of the paper is on cross-cultural studies, carried out in Germany, Israel and Japan. In North Germany, as compared to the U. S., there was a higher frequency of avoidant behavior in babies. This finding has been linked with the cultural demand for premature self-reliance. It is suggested that in the avoidant North German children we see the early ontogeny of the authoritarian character.
This essay proposes to examine a limited number of critical assessments regarding the scientific status of psychoanalysis with reference to intents and purposes, claims and disclaimers, contrasting views of what constitutes a science and the nature of scientific thinking and how these might apply to psychoanalysis epistemologically. It assumes a certain degree of familiarity with criticisms that have been leveled against psychoanalysis from those who insist on absolutist testing for what some call true science, particularly on the part of those who are not practitioners of the art. It wonders about the concern with scientizing by those who actually practice it, or value it in some way or another. It suggests an open minded approach without premature or even warranted closure on the subject of human beings and of ways of getting to know them, let alone understanding them and perhaps being of help to them.
The process of healing in psychoanalysis is considered from a holistic point of view instead of the usual scientific and medical models. The revolution in thinking represented by the sciences of complexity is discussed as a basis for a holistic concept of healing. An example is given of clinical change achieved by non-psychoanalytic means in order to suggest new ways of thinking about how healing occurs in psychotherapy.
Although Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswick, Daniel J. Levinson, and R. Nevitt Stanford promised to later review the theoretical contributions that guided their work when they published The Authoritarian Personality in 1950, this was never done. Nor have any of the 1,200+ subsequent studies on authoritarianism focused explicitly on the theoretical ideas that resulted in the nine subsyndromes introduced in the original study: conventionalism, authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, antiintraception, superstition and stereotype, power and toughness, destructiveness and cynicism, projectivity, and concern with sex. Assessed here, therefore, are the theoretical and methodological contributions that were eventually incorporated into the classical conception of authoritarianism, particularly those of Erich FROMM, who had been working on a similar concept since the late 1920s.
Although Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswick, Daniel J. Levinson, and R. Nevitt Stanford promised to later review the theoretical contributions that guided their work when they published The Authoritarian Personality in 1950, this was never done. Nor have any of the 1,200+ subsequent studies on authoritarianism focused explicitly on the theoretical ideas that resulted in the nine subsyndromes introduced in the original study: conventionalism, authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, antiintraception, superstition and stereotype, power and toughness, destructiveness and cynicism, projectivity, and concern with sex. Assessed here, therefore, are the theoretical and methodological contributions that were eventually incorporated into the classical conception of authoritarianism, particularly those of Erich FROMM, who had been working on a similar concept since the late 1920s.
In his closing address to the IFPS Conference on the theme >Psychoanalysis between conformity and opposition<, held in Munich in 1992, the author emphasizes the importance of the psychoanalytical training system in promoting a sense of responsibility on the part of the psychoanalyst. He bases his discussion on Winnicott's concept of the capacity for concern, and concludes that the current training system runs counter to the goal of encouraging a sense of responsibility in psychoanalysts. In this, the author confirms criticism currently being expressed in Germany whereby this situation is a consequence of the incorporation of personal development processes, including the training analysis, within the educational programme used by the training institutions. He sees the reason for the failure to implement changes in the training system as an unconscious need on the part of analysts in training for intimacy, a need which coincides with the need of the institutions involved to maintain their power.
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 Depth of the Field
(1993)
Some social and political issues related to Ferenczi and the Hungarian school. Typescript, 15 pp.
(1993)
The contingencies in life histories of one male and two female patients of their wish to engage in new techniques for fertility and procreation are explored. Remarkable denial strategies defending narcissistic vulnerabilities were found in all cases. Although they are in fact quite stressful and at best moderately succesful the new medical-technical solutions can acquire magic qualities warding off unresolved conflicts around omnipotence and gender differentiation. In the treatment-process transference undergoes distinct shifts in quality, intensity as well as object when oedipal and pre-oedipal conflicts tend to be acted out with the administering physician. As to the fate of the psychic development of children begotten in these new forms of procreation and parenting, e.g. lesbian couples, much is yet unclear; though complex and fluid defenses coloured by denial and magical qualities towards the father introject have been observed.
The author comments on Horst Petri's case presentation and gives reasons why he sees social criticism within the process of interpretation as inappropriate. Firstly he contradicts Petri's view of the severity of his patient's illness. He thinks a supportive therapy was not appropriate and he would have treated her by using conflict centered interpretations. Secondly he assumes that the analyst's social criticism forms an alliance with the analysand which excludes essential issues from the analytic work. And thirdly he reminds us that psychoanalysis doesn't spare a supposedly progressive attitude from criticism. Within the framework of psychoanalytic theory, the relativity of all value judgements forbids the analyst to tie himself down in the way Petri suggests.