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Organisation und Charakter. Sozialpsychologische Aspekte zur Analyse von Sekten und Psychogruppen
(1998)
>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.
In this contribution we are offered an analysis of Erich Fromm's relation to the Institut für Sozialforschung. In his capacity as director of the Department of Social Psychology, Fromm played a leading role in the empirical investigatory work carried out at the Institute, apart from being Horkheimer's principal interlocutor in questions connected with the psychoanalytic extension of Historical Materialism. Working within the framework of Horkheimer's envisaged goal of an historical-philosophical theory of the development of the contemporary era that was to draw on the various disciplines, Fromm made his own specific contribution that came to be known by the name of analytic social psychology. Fromm's departure from the Institute marked the terminal point of a whole developmental pathway, and was prompted by differences on substantial points as well as by personal differences. In particular, it was Fromm's revision of psychoanalysis that aroused Horkheimer and Adorno's critical ire. To the extent that Adorno's influence grew within the Institute, Fromm's own suffered as a result. After Adorno's appointment to full membership of the Institute in 1938, Fromm found himself increasingly reduced to a marginal position; and after a short while he accepted the consequences and left. Fromm's departure from the Institute led to a lifelong rift between him and the other members of the Institute, the consequence being that Fromm's contribution to the early versions of the Critical Theory – which he had made as head of the Department of Social Psychology and as director of research – was later deliberately passé sous silence.
>Drive Structure or Social Relationships<: After his departure from the Institute, Erich Fromm pursued with renewed intensity his sociological revision of psychoanalysis that was to touch off the debate with Herbert Marcuse, his earlier colleague at the Institute, and which came to be known as the culturalism-revisionism controversy. The charge leveled at Fromm was that he had moved away from recognizing the drive structure as the key bearer of the resistance potential in the Critical Theory and had instead thrown the central focus onto social relationships, where it is the Ego as the mediating factor – rather than the Id – that is geared to alienated reality. But while it is true enough that Fromm did shift the emphasis away from the drive structure to social relationships, it should be added that he grouped these social relationships very much under the rubric of >the pathology of normality< and criticized them as bearing the stamp of the underlying economic order. This contribution examines the background to the controversy between Herbert Marcuse and Erich Fromm, and sets out the principal arguments advanced by the contending parties. What emerges, interestingly enough, is that both protagonists never diverged as much in their respective positions as the noisy exchange of blows perhaps suggested. There is little to distinguish both camps in their common humanistic concern for the advancement of human happiness. Undoubtedly Marcuse and Fromm are at one in advancing a radical social critique: but whereas the one critique is premised on the need to inculcate a drive structure capable of withstanding the forces of repressive socialization, the other seeks its inspiration in a critical anthropology that keeps alive the idea of a more humane society – even in the face of the negation of this idea.
On the subject of countertransference we attempt to establish a line of continuity between Freud's own expression >blind spot< and Fromm's idea of >counterattitude<. It is pointed out that both expressed the idea of the analyst's unconscious as an >instrument< for understanding the patient's unconscious. It follows that the decision to openly use or not to use countertransference in analysis also depends on the concept we have of it and on its extent. The psy-choanalyst's real and illusory values and his convictions with regard to human nature influence the countertransference and the analytic relationship. Analytic listening itself may be distorted by it. We must be highly aware of this to avoid enclosing what the patient says in a theoretic scheme. What is needed, there-fore, is an open theoretic scheme, more oriented towards understanding than in-terpretation. Aspects of analytic communication and of the relationship between language, thought and insight are examined. A humanistic point of view is as-sumed in distinguishing between the transferral and the real plane, and the rea-sons behind the legitimacy of such a distinction are expounded.
Controllo e creatività
(1988)
The present article is an attempt to elucidate the epistemological- ethical significance of the x experience in humanistic psychology and ethics. The aim is to show the epistemological-ethical relevance of the x experience phenomenon for developing a new integral self-understanding of the scientific task as a integral anthropology. The aim is to pick up where Fromm left off in his previously unpublished, cautiously formulated programmatic essay entitled >Institute for the Science of Man.< The article begins with a section looking at Fromm’s conception of >the conscious mind< and >the unconscious<. Particularly stressed here is the radical reform of the Freudian concept of >the unconscious< undertaken by Fromm in his analytical social psychology and humanist psychoanalysis. The second section outlines what the x experience phenomenon is and explains its importance for humanistic psychoanalysis. Fromm’s concept of >derepression< is presented and its important anthropological and epistemological implications discussed. The fact that there had been as good as no scientific study of the logic of the x experience, nor of its epistemological, ethical and anthropological implications, led Fromm to call for what he called an >empirically based psychological anthropology<, which would serve as the basis for all individual disciplines within the human sciences. The third section, given the heading >The Importance of the X- Experience in Humanistic Psychoanalysis for Achieving an Integrally Expanded Self-Understanding in the Sciences and in Mankind,< takes Armin Bader’s epistemological ideal of a integrally expanded self-understanding (the so-called comprehensive method of research) as a key starting point from which a theoretical scientific basis can then be developed for purposes of realizing the Frommian ideal of science as integral anthropology. The article closes by discussing the significance of the x experience for the development of an evolutionary theory of man.
Compares FROMM's position on psychoanalytic technique with that of other analysts. Of the 2 essential therapeutic factors, insight and experience of new relationships, FROMM only stresses the first. Yet, his insistence on direct relatedness implies that the patient's experience of a new relationship with the analyst would inevitably become the 2nd major factor in a FROMMian analysis. However, FROMM never discussed this in theoretical terms. FROMM's reference to nonerotic love would lead one to define his attitude as that of parental love, although FROMM would suspect this definition to encourage in the analyst a narcissistic self-image as a good parent.
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.
Fromm wrote very little on psychoanalytic technique, and his views have to be reconstructed mainly from unpublished and indirect sources. In this paper, a systematic comparison between Freud and Fromm on twelve points of technique is carried out. Fromm agrees with Freud that the aim of psychoanalysis is that of making the unconscious conscious, but he extends this aim to the full recovery of the unconscious. Fromm differs most sharply from Freud on the role of the analyst. In his view, the detached attitude is the most serious defect in Freud’s technique. According to Fromm, the analyst should be his full self with the patient and aim at a >core-to-core< relatedness. He should offer himself as an object of transference, but also as a real person. Resistances should be approached very actively. In this modification of Freud’s technique, Fromm views Ferenczi and Sullivan as his precursors. Fromm’s position is also compared with more recent psychoanalytic developments. It is suggested that, by being intensely involved at an empathic level but by not seeing himself as inevitably enmeshed in the repetition of the past and by not making the therapeutic interaction explicit, Fromm belongs to the analysts characterized by >participation with< and not to those characterized by >participation in<.
105 Per Square Mile
(1971)