Articles / Artikel
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 The aim is to pick up where Fromm left off in his previously unpublished, cautiously formulated programmatic essay entitled 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.
Fromm wrote very little on psychoanalytic technique, and his views have to be reconstructed mainly from unpublished and indirect sources.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<.
Der Beitrag >Die Rezeption von Fromm bei Psychologen und Psychiatern< entspricht einem Kapitel der Dissertation, die der Autor unter dem Titel Fromm’s Legacy: A Critical Appreciation 1989 an der York University in Toronto abschloss. Mehr als irgend ein anderes Kapitel der umfangreichen Studie ist das hier erstmals veröffentlichte der >kritischen Geschichtsschreibung der Psychologie< von Kurt Dan-zinger verpflichtet, der die Dissertation betreute. Am Beispiel von Erich Fromm werden die Probleme und Tücken einer lehrbuchmäßigen Geschichtsschreibung aufgezeigt. An ausgewählten, repräsentativen Beispielen wird gezeigt, wie Fromms Originalität in Unkenntnis seiner frühesten (deutschsprachigen) Schriften in der englisch-sprachigen Sekundärliteratur unterbewertet wird und wie sehr die Wirkungen der deutschen Kultur des späten 19. Jahrhunderts auf Fromms Denken und auf seine Ansichten verkannt werden. Meistens beschränken sich deshalb die amerikanischen Referenten und Kritiker darauf, Fromm zu etikettieren: Er sei ein >Environmentalist<, ein >Umfeldtheoretiker<, ein >sozialer Lerntheoretiker<, oder auch ein >intuitiver< oder >utopischer< Theoretiker. Tragischerweise wird dabei die besondere Freudsche Dimension im Frommschen Werk übersehen. Werden jedoch nur Kategorien herangezogen, die im amerikanischen Kontext entstanden sind und die wenig oder überhaupt keine Bedeutung für je-nen Kontext haben, der für europäisches Denken typisch ist, dann begünstigt man nur eine Trivialisie-rung der grundlegenden Ideen Fromms und ihr grundsätzliches Missverstehen. So muss man den meisten amerikanischen Kritikern auf Grund ihres >gesellschaftlichen Filters< bzw. wegen ihrer Vorurteile, die in ihrer eingeschränkten Auffassung von dem, was Psychologie ist, liegt, eine kollektive Unfähigkeit at-testieren, sich wirklich mit dem Frommschen Werk auseinander zu setzen. Die amerikanischen Etikettie-rungen erfuhren andererseits ihre Prägung durch die besonders in Amerika strenge Freudsche Orthodoxie bzw. durch die mehr und mehr positivistischen und behavioristischen Strömungen in der akademi-schen Psychologie gerade in jenen Jahren, in denen Fromm sich in der breiten Öffentlichkeit einer all-gemeinen Beliebtheit erfreute. In anderen Abschnitten geht es um Fromms Verhältnis zur Humanisti-schen Psychologie in Amerika sowie um die weitverbreitete Verwirrung und Unkenntnis bezüglich seiner Vorstellungen zur Ethik und zur Psychotherapie, wobei Fromm zu dieser Verwirrung und Unkenntnis selbst unbeabsichtigt beigetragen hat.
>Erich Fromm’s Humanist Philosophy of the Need to Establish a Science of Man<: Erich Fromm’s concept of the scientific enterprise is characterized by the propounding of a special methodology. His concept of >science< is not in the least bit orientated to the natural or the social sciences. Rather it is based on reflections on the >situatedness< of human beings in the world (the conditio humana itself), reflections that rightly seen as constituting a philosophical anthropology. Moreover, Fromm does not proceed by generalizing and abstracting in either a deductively naturalistic fashion or in one that seeks its point of departure in the findings of the various sciences. Rather Fromm blends together insights derived from the various humanities and social sciences to arrive at his approach to the situatedness of human beings in the world. This he does by harmonizing the biological, social and psychical determinants so that their combined relevance for humanity becomes apprehensible, i.e. whether they are functional or dysfunctional. The rationality of the perceiving subject is always seen by Fromm as persisting in an interrelation with the activity-directed character of the subject. The upshot is that, by drawing on the character conception and its orientation, Fromm is not only able to reflect in his methodology the >interest< of the subject striving for objective knowledge, but he also manages to arrive at a conception of the scientific task that pegs it squarely to value judgements. This means that the science of man, understood as a genuinely human anthropology, is necessarily orientated to the humanistic ideal of love, productive rationality and productive activity. At the same time, Fromm attempts to draw on the science of man in order to demonstrate that humanism can be both humane and scientific at one and the same time.
Welcome Remarks. Opening of the Conference Humanism and Society in Heidelberg, March 1990, 4 p.
(1990)
Träume und Übertragung
(1990)
>Dreams and Transference<: Freud (1915-16, p. 181f.) states: >It is natural that we should lose some of our interest in the manifest dream... In general we must avoid seeking to explain one part of the manifest dream by another. as though the dream had been coherently conceived and was a logically arranged narrative.< For Fromm (1951a, p. 28) man has two poles of experiencing: on the one hand those pertaining to his waking state and his dreams are the other pole; our waking experinece will help us understand the latent, unconscious content of our dreams, and our dreams will help us comprehend the unconscious motivations of our waking lives. For him (cf. 1951a and 1979a), it is true that the ideographs of the manifest dream may often seem absurd, confused, incoherent, but it does lead us to their coherent intrinsic logic. The manifest dream allows us to formulate some tentative affirmations, but above all, it imposes questions whose answers will emerge in our continued dialogue with the dreamer, for he alone has the answer that will allow us to grasp the intimate over-all symbol of his dreams. The totality of the dream must be appraised as a global symbol that represents at the same time an >instantaneous snapshot< of the moment of his being. From a teleological perspective, it is as if the sites presented, the actors and the rest of the cast, other living beings (be they animals, plants, nature) and diverse objects have all been chosen for what they reveal of the dreamer, thus objectifying and demystifying him. Each dream symbol represents a condensation, thus it is a mistake to jump to the conclusion that such a figure is of necessity mother or father or that another is a penis or a vagina; maybe it will all turn out to be so, but we can wait until all is unequivocally clear. As Freud (1900a, p. 608) stated, the understanding of dreams leads us along >the royal road< to what has been unconscious to the dreamer. Only a few dreams fulfill wishes (cf. E. Fromm, 1979a, p. 72 and p. 95f.); the vast majority tend to objectify our present situation and, not too infrequently, they allow us insight into the personality of others. This paper presents some aspects of the humanist psychoanalytic concept of conscious – unconscious and its import for the understanding of transference phenomena and the process of transcending it. Since our dreams clarify our Here and Now it stands to reason that dreams will clearly reveal the state of the >dream-day< transference. By-and-large, the manifest dream reveals the unconscious relationship to significant individuals of the dreamer’s environment, which always includes the therapist whether or not he (she) is present in the dream. Quite often one can see the waking relationship to the analyst and quite another what is evinced in the analysand’s dreams... We must never loose sight of what these latter reveal, for in our dreams we are free and candid. – This paper also presents clinical material.
Dreams and transference
(1990)
Outlines perspectives of Freud (e.g., 1900) and of E. FROMM (e.g., 1951) concerning the nature of dreams and their relationship to transference. During psychoanalysis, dreamers must begin to experience the intimate global symbol of their dreams and retain consciousness of what had been unconscious to them. This process must accompany what they communicate in the dyad; otherwise the analytic procedure becomes an intellectual construct and analysands remain aloof from their dreams, the latent content of the dreams, and what they could become aware of in the waking state. Relevant dreams of a 40-yr-old man over 4 yrs of analysis are described.