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Following in Hannah Arendt’s steps, this paper addresses the author’s definition of terrorism mostly from a psychoanalytical point of view and focuses further on the clinical implications related to the different thoughts on terrorism of a number of psychoanalysts. Some clinical vignettes, from individual as well as group psychotherapy, show how deep the reverberation of our way of thinking about terrorism can be in our work as psychoanalysts, particularly in regard to the integration of the destructive aspects of the personality and of the Self, and above all in cases with a history of traumatic attachment. Indeed, the psychoanalyst can actually remain embedded inside the patient's dissociative dynamics, and the treatment can fall into a painful impasse, allowing mutilated, torn, dead, and dissociated aspects to be left outside the conscious and the Self. The result of this kind of situation is a stiffening of the personality and a mortification of the whole Self.
以>立德树人<为旨归的道德教育必然需要关注学生完善人格的最终形成, 然而, 什么是完善人格, 如何培育完善人格, 完善人格养成的内在机制是什么, 对于这些问题的解答一直是道德教育理论研究的难题, 而对这些问题进行深入研究对于解决当前我国青少年道德发展过程中所出现的知行不一的状况也具重要的实践意义。当代西方马克思主义理论重要的代表学者, 人本主义学家埃里希·弗洛姆(1900—1980)在其庞大精深的人道主义伦理学体系中, 对人格表现出极大关注, 主张在对人性、人的本质和人的境遇充分认识的基础上通过塑造一种生产性人格, 进而实现人的道德完善, 这为解决当前我国德育困境提供了可借鉴的思想资源。本文以弗洛姆生产性人格培育为视角, 着重探究其生产性人格理论中所蕴含的丰富伦理观和德育方法论, 以期为当前我国道德教育的理论与实践提供启示。首先, 在对弗洛姆生产性人格理论产生的时代背景、思想来源和理论前提进行论述的基础上, 本文论证了人格在弗洛姆人道主义伦理学中的中心地位, 进而对生产性人格的内涵及其理论意义进行了解读, 也直接论证了生产性人格培育的必要性。其次, 本文进一步探究了弗洛姆生产性人格的培育路径。提出生产性人格的培育依赖于人的自发性行动和健全社会的建构。生产性人格的形成需要理性认知、生产性的爱、理性信仰和人道主义良心这些内在力量相互作用以推动道德行动, 最终使人达到真正的幸福状态。生产性人格的培育倡导道德教育回归道德主体, 回归生活艺术, 回归道德实践和存在式教育方式。最后, 本文认为, 弗洛姆生产性人格理论有助于促进学生的道德发展和完善人格的塑造, 它也启示当前的道德教育应回归道德主体, 促进人的自由全面发展;应进一步夯实道德心理学的基础, 促进道德知情意行的统一;应回归现实生活, 关注生活艺术的培育;还要反对占有式教育, 倡导启发式教学。
戴维•威廉森是当代澳大利亚最著名的剧作家, 拥有最多的观众。他创作的《俱乐部》是一部影响深远的讽刺性戏剧, 该剧讲述了发生在20世纪70年代墨尔本一个足球俱乐部中的故事。剧中每个人为了自身的利益不择手段, 管理者与球员之间勾心斗角、相互构陷。该剧反映了人自私自利、金钱至上的观念, 以及人与人之间冷漠、相互利用的关系, 揭露了当代澳大利亚社会中的人性异化现象。本文运用弗洛姆的人性异化理论论述了《俱乐部》中的人性异化现象。该剧中人物的异化表现在人自身的异化和人与人之间关系的异化这两个方面, 人自身的异化主要表现在权欲的奴隶、情欲的魔鬼和物欲的过分依赖三个方面;人与人之间的异化则表现在男女关系的异化和男性同事之间关系的异化。此外, 笔者从外在和内在分析人性异化产生的内外因。外因指社会原因, 包括金钱至上的观念和男权至上的观念;而内在原因指的是弗洛姆提出的存在矛盾。最后, 人性的回归在部分人物上也有所体现, 让读者看到了光明与希望。
>Endgame<, the masterpiece of Samuel Beckett, a most difficult and elusive play, is such a creative work, representing the postwar social spirit. Psychological alienation is obvious in the play, since anti-hero figures, broken language, bare stage and simple actions are largely employed to prove the psychological alienation of the characters in the play. This thesis is based on Erich Fromm’s psychological alienation theory from three aspects: >Authoritarianism, destructiveness, acceptance and exploitation< (Fromm: Escape from Freedom, 24) to explore the main characters Hamm and Clov’s psychological alienation in the hopeless society. And people’s inner world is alienated, lonely and empty after World War II. [Automatic translation]
Descendants of terror
(2019)
The aim of this paper is to approach transgenerational transmission aspects of the traumatic experience of terror in the large social group. The author makes use of the notion of chosen trauma, coined by Vamik Volkan, which shows how specific mental representations of a traumatizing historical event, shared by the large group, can be transmitted to descendants and eventually used by them as a linking factor of their large group. The above issues, along with the importance of reversal of helplessness and of inability to mourn, are discussed; relevant clinical material focusing on the interplay between large-group and individual transmission is presented.
Making films can be a lifeline, an aid to going on living when (we feel) the world around us has disappeared. Looking, showing that there’s a >there there,< recording the present moment and thereby preserving it, can, for a time, make us not feel the nothingness within us. But the rescue that comes from making a film is always provisional. Why? Because every film has an end. Because if there are no more films to make, if there is nothing that deserves to be looked at (the worst case scenario), going on living will have exhausted itself, and taking one’s own life (if indeed there was a life to take) may seem the only option. Chantal Akerman’s >No Home Movie< – a film recording the slow death of her mother in her Brussels apartment – is this worst case scenario. A moving record of the psychic devastation that comes about when we, slowly but surely, lose the one object worth looking at. Panic, depression, hopelessness, and a fierce determination to go where the disappeared object went. To this last home where nothing no longer moves.
Fromm was one of the first psychoanalysts to deal with the crisis of civilization. His ideas about human nature, the social character and the social unconscious, the pathology of normalcy and the ideal of productivity are important. Fromm criticizes industrialism for its unrealizable promises of freedom and happiness, which correspond to an ideology of growth and progress. The satisfaction of >false< needs and desires does not lead to human well-being.
Fromm's Contribution to the Analysis and Critique of the Ongoing Rise of Right-Wing Movements
(2019)
One of the most important political changes in Europe, the USA and beyond is the growth of nationalistic parties and authoritarian structures within states. This contribution aims to demonstrate how a Frommian perspective on basic psychological needs, asynchronicity and alienation could contribute to a social-psychological understanding of nationalistic trends. At the end of the paper, we present some conclusions drawn from this social-psychological point of view concerning the development of a sane society.
The work of Erich Fromm is often overlooked in contemporary feminist thought. Yet important areas of relevance—his critiques of symbiotic love and sadomasochism, advocacy of mutual recognition, and objections to patriarchal presumptions in Freud’s work—render Fromm’s thought useful for feminists. Disadvantages adhere in Fromm’s ideas too, including sexist language and biologically-tinged maternalism. However, this paper reinterprets these problems to advocate for rediscovering both Fromm’s feminist and humanist aspirations.
Fromm’s necrophilous character is evident in state and governmentally run psychiatric hospitals in the United States. Rigid over-reliance on behavioral interventions can be seen as defensive posturing against the terror of uncertainty when confronted with psychosis. Clinical vignettes with institutionalized schizophrenic adults are presented. A plea is made for clinicians to work from a position of respect and love to fight the dehumanization that can result when a psychoanalytic mindset is abandoned.
The Many Prisons of Women Predestined to Commit a Crime. Sadomasochism as a Female Survival Strategy
(2019)
This is an approach to Mexican female delinquency from a Frommian sadomasochism and a non-punitive criminal justice perspective, based on autobiographical life stories written by women confined in Mexican prisons. Those women have always lived in a society which assaults them in a thousand ways and treats them with inequity; whatever their crime, they are not judged with a gender perspective. Almost all are poor, many of them are mothers forced to abandon their children to serve their sentence behind bars in despicable conditions, accused of crimes that many times they commit induced by their partners' behavior against them.
Erich Fromm’s life during the 1930s, his confrontation with Nazism and his family’s experience of the Holocaust is explored. The impact of this period on his writing, especially Escape from Freedom is considered. The current political situation, in which anti-Semitism has increased and minorities are persecuted makes the examination of Fromm’s experience of persecution and exile especially relevant. The author uses his own German family history and his discovery of his grandfather’s Nazi past to examine the importance of Fromm’s analysis of authoritarian tendencies in Germany in the early 1930s.
In this paper I compare Fromm’s account of social transformation with that of Alain Touraine. I argue that although there are many points of connection between Fromm’s account of >the art of living< and Alain Touraine’s account of the >Politics of the Subject,< Fromm ultimately goes beyond Touraine at many points, offering a more detailed explanatory account of how individual transformation is related to the larger, but related, goal of social transformation. I conclude that Fromm’s often overlooked account of the mechanics of individual change ought to be returned to in the process of reinvigorating social theory and practice.
The aim of this paper is to examine post-truth politics using Erich Fromm’s theory of narcissism and showing a route towards a sane society in Fromm’s sense. Post-truth situations are generated by negative synergistic effects between narcissistic psychological tendencies and social media. Both of them have so-called filter bubble effects which segregate people from inner and outer reality. The process of integrating an unknown experience or reality into the self produces a new experience. That is a definition of Fromm’s love and the way to overcome narcissism.
In my overview of the development of Fromm's theories, I show, first of all, how Fromm and his theory of relatedness and social character aimed to understand the individual and society in a different way from what was usual at that time. Secondly, I expound how relevant the often ignored social psychoanalytical approach is for current thinking in terms of relatedness, and how open his approach is to insights stemming from human biology.
This paper highlights the relevance of Erich Fromm’s concepts of social character and social change to offer a more nuanced understanding of the neo-liberal inter-generational traumatic legacy of loss of stable work, changing worker gendered identity, disrupted affect, community engagement and historical memory within a global context of insecure labour and emerging neoliberal forms of social character in the aftermath of massive redundancies and unemployment experienced recently in some post-industrial working class communities in the UK.
In the social sciences, there are different point of views on how social change has an impact on good leadership in contemporary societies. As a contribution to this debate, this article builds on basic ideas of the humanistic approach of Erich Fromm and highlights the associated possibilities for an adequate understanding of contemporary leadership demands. Key narratives and open questions related to challenges for leadership in contemporary societies facing digital transformation are evaluated from a Frommian perspective.
A longitudinal study of early attachment and social character development of 14 Nahuat mother-infant dyads -since the infants were 11 months, having assessed them at 9 years of age and again in their late adolescence- show a significant improvement on the youngsters’ emotional development. The study conducted by the Seminario de Sociopsicoanálisis within a 40-year-long humanizing project in the village, called >Intercultural Participation Project,< suggests the benefit of promoting the rescue of their indigenous Nahuat culture and tradition.
Introduction
(2019)
Mainstream social science has been blindsided by the rise of Trumpism and broader growth of authoritarian populism. We make the case that Frommian work is desperately needed inside the core of contemporary social science theorizing by examining social character theory up against and alongside the concept of habitus developed by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Both Fromm and Bourdieu were concerned with the human costs of social change and economic development, Fromm with his writings on advanced capitalism in The Sane Society (1955a) and on Mexican village life in Social Character in a Mexican Village (with Michael Maccoby, 1970b), and Bourdieu with his extended studies of peasants in Algeria during the French colonial war of the 1950s and early 1960s. We will compare and contrast the theory of social character developed in the Mexican study with Bourdieu's concept of habitus, and discuss what Fromm's ideas can add to Bourdieu-influenced critical social science.
In the first part, the article reconstructs, through the idea of >pathology of normalcy,< Fromm's critique of the cultural foundations of contemporary capitalism. In the second part, it is carried forward through the concepts of >social character< and <alienation,< in order to understand how the late twentieth-century capitalism deepens an anti-humanist culture as never before. Finally, in the conclusion, it seeks to demonstrate how Fromm anticipates some essential features of the critique of capitalist culture, later analyzed by critics of the >new< capitalism, such as Axel Honneth, Richard Sennett and Boltanski & Chiapello.
Erich Fromm had developed a dialectical approach on alienation phenomena in work. On the one side he criticizes today’s poor working conditions and on the other side he shows productive orientation in work. In my essay I will discuss empirical and theoretical contributions of social-psychological research in this Frommian perspective.
Self-Conscious Person Above Social Pressures: Erich Fromm's Guidelines for Individual Liberation
(2019)
Erich Fromm succeeded in embracing with equal depth all the main aspects of human existence: unconscious dynamics, social formative influences and self-determination of the human being as a conscious agent. This last aspect of Fromm’s heritage allows us to speak of him as an existentially minded thinker. His analysis of human situation, theory of existential needs, view on human nature as undefined, theory of freedom and theory of being as opposed to having make a priceless contribution to the existentialist line of thought.
The paper presents a study of the social character of 16 people with an adapted version of the social character questionnaires developed by Erich Fromm and Michael Maccoby (Fromm & Maccoby 1970b) and Rainer Funk and colleagues (Fromm-Gesellschaft 1995). The difficulties during the analysis of the responses are described and the main cultural differences that are responsible for these difficulties are analyzed.
This paper explores Fromm’s dialectic analysis of power relations as it applies to the dynamics of change at the societal and personal levels. First, the paper discusses the use of empirical research—system justification theory—to test the impact of socio-psychological and structural resistances to change. Second, it looks at the concept of The Social Third to illustrate Fromm’s clinical approach around connectedness, subjectivity, narcissism, internalization of normative structures and the centrality of the concept of social character in shaping the dynamics of change.
Concepts from Self-Determination theory are related to Fromm’s conceptualizations of existential human needs and human strengths. Empirical findings seem to support Fromm (1955a) in stating that socio-economic environments which embody particular values will influence psychological well-being, health and social relations of consumers. Further, empirical studies on effects of working in democratic enterprises and experiencing a sociomoral work climate upon employees’ attitudes and behaviors will be presented. All in all, the findings support Fromm’s vision of a humanization and democratization of work.
Universality is being deconstructed within contemporary social struggles. Focusing on struggles around the discourse on refugees and the nation, and so-called >welcome culture< in the German context in particular, questions arise regarding the emancipatory potential of emerging narratives of a contested common ground (Hark et al. 2015). This article proposes Erich Fromm's understanding of >radical humanism< (1968a) and its line of argumentation towards >global solidarity< (Wilde 2013) instead of national >group narcissism< (Fromm 1964a) as a normative base to evaluate the emancipatory value of emerging narratives.
This paper shows that Fromm's discussion is curiously connected to the tradition of American individualism. In Escape from Freedom, Fromm suggests that authoritarianism derives from aloneness as a result of modern individualism and entrusts his hope in democracy for spontaneous activity and solidarity. But why is spontaneous activity and solidarity hopeful in democracy? The interesting thing is, this conclusion is close to the discussion of Alexis de Tocqueville, who also regarded spontaneous relationships as an important foundation of democracy. Based on Tocqueville's insight, there is a tradition in sociology that argues for the relationship between democracy and individualism, such as David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd and Robert Bellah's Habits of the Heart. This paper attempts to show how Fromm was influenced by the tradition of American individualism and discusses Fromm's impact on later American individualism studies.
弗洛姆在其《逃避自由》一书中认为>逃避自由<表现了人类普遍的病态心理,造成了病态的社会,而且贯穿了当代资本主义的整个进程。他想要表达的主题是:逃避孤独,放弃自由。他认为孤独和自由是一对双生胎儿,逃避孤独和追求自由一样,都深深的植于人的本性中。当二者发生冲突时,人们启动了逃避心理机制,逃避孤独的同时也放弃了自由。但这种逃避在理论上是行不通的,实践也证明这种逃避不仅是失败,更是一种灾难。通过学习弗洛姆在社会微观层面上的心理学分析与马克思在社会宏观层面上的社会批判及建构之间找到寻找自由的契合点,不仅能够加强我们对马克思自由观的科学性的认识,也能增强我们对整个人类自由解放的信心,力求树立正确的自由观,实现人的全面发展。
A libertação dos oprimidos [The liberation of the oppressed] [La liberación de los oprimidos]
(2019)
Este texto teve por objetivo refletir sobre o conceito de liberdade e libertação, a partir do que disse Paulo Freire em Educação como Prática da Liberdade (que ele chama de >introdução à Pedagogia do Oprimido<) e Pedagogia do Oprimido. A nosso ver, como o conceito de liberdade foi especialmente sugestionado por Erich Fromm, trouxemos para o debate a sua problematização. Identificamos que Freire, de certa forma, vai preterindo a ideia de liberdade, usada inicialmente para significar as ideias de Fromm, e se volta especialmente às ideias marxistas. Isso demonstra o investimento de Freire na libertação dos oprimidos, onde reside quase todo propósito de sua pedagogia, cuja principal obra, Pedagogia do Oprimido, está completando cinquenta anos.
Las prácticas de consumo han estado históricamente asociadas con las emociones, siendo dadoras de status, orgullo, prestigio, satisfacción, vergüenza. En este sentido, el presente escrito tiene por objetivo rastrear en algunos trabajos teóricos, el modo en que el consumo –como práctica social- ha estado fuertemente relacionado con las emociones de los sujetos. La estrategia expositiva será la siguiente: en primer lugar se hace un recorrido teórico que escinde el consume de las necesidades vitales y de la noción de utilidad. En segundo lugar se consideran los trabajos de Erich Fromm (2013) y de Colin Campbell (1983), en cuyos desarrollos las emociones presentan un lugar central en vinculación con procesos económicos y sociales. En tercer lugar – acercándonos a una perspectiva más actual –, se buscará delinear los rasgos del >hombre de consumo del siglo XXI< (Scribano, 2015). Por último, se harán unas reflexiones a modo de cierre.
U radu pokušavam primijeniti Frommov pojam spontanosti na Foucaultovu teoriju sustava represije. Ovom analogijom pokušava se iznova sagledati Foucaultov problem slobode, pomoću pojma koji Foucault uglavnom zanemaruje. Osnovna je teškoća takvog pristupa u različitim polazištima dvojice autora pri analizi uzroka ljudske podčinjenosti kroz povijest. Unatoč tome, članak će pokazati da je moguće pronaći točku konvergencije između Fromma i Foucaulta: oba autora opisuju svojevrsni bijeg pojedinca prema institucijama moći. Bilo da su te institucije formaliziranije ili rudimentarnije, raspršene ili centralizirane, zajednička im je osnova represija utemeljena na izbjegavanju bilo kakve spontanosti.
Between Thanatos and Eros: Erich Fromm and the psychoanalysis of social networking technology use
(2019)
Social networking technologies have become a ubiquitous framework for social interaction, serving to organise much of the individual’s social life. Such technological structuring affects not merely the individual’s psyche (as a psycho- technics), it also affects broader aspects of society (as a socio-technics). While social networking technologies may serve to transform society in positive ways, such technologies also have the potential to significantly encroach upon and (re) construct individual and cultural meaning in ways that must be investigated. Erich Fromm, who psychoanalytically describes humans as a product of their society and the economic systems within that society, may provide insight into the influence of social networking technologies in contemporary society. He sees the relationship between the individual and society as being in a constant state of dynamic change. Utilising Fromm’s psycho-societal insight, social networking technologies are shown to conflate and confuse the relation between Thanatos and Eros – the Thanatos of a lifeless and consumerist agenda-filled mechanisation, and the Eros associated with social engagement. Thanatos and Eros are tied together via social networking technologies. This results in, firstly, social networking technologies functioning predominantly to further capitalist agendas through the monetisation of these technologies – particularly in terms of linking commodity fetishism and the foundational social drive of the individual. Secondly, social networking technologies mechanise human action according to predictable behavioural paths through the use of these technologies, especially in terms of how socialisation is possible via these technologies (shaping how platonic and romantic relationships may take place in the contemporary world). Such a mechanisation of interpersonal engagement contrasts with Erich Fromm’s assertion that interpersonal relations (vis-à-vis love) are not “mere emotion”, but rather represent an interpersonal creative capacity and interplay. Fromm’s psycho-societal insights will show how contemporary individuals may take independent and responsible rational action to establish accountable and psychologically beneficial ways of engaging with others through social networking technologies.
[...] On this basis, we determined that 231 human genes under study are subject to natural selection against under expression (significance p < 0.0005), which equally supports the human tendencies in domination and subordination such as the norm of a reaction (plasticity) of the human social hierarchy. These findings explain vertical transmission of domination and subordination traits previously observed in rodent models. Thus, the results of this study equally support both sides of the century-old unsettled scientific debate on whether both aggressiveness and the social hierarchy among humans are inherited (as suggested by Freud and Lorenz) or are due to non-genetic social education, when the children are influenced by older individuals across generations (as proposed by Berkowitz and Fromm).
Das Phänomen des Postfaktischen lässt sich in Anlehnung an Erich Fromm als einen modernen Fluchtmechanismus verstehen. Es handelt sich beim Postfaktischen um eine Flucht vor der Freiheit – eine Flucht vor dem freien und eigenständigen Denken und Handeln, dem sich das Individuum in der Moderne entziehen möchte, weil es sich selbst als ohnmächtig wahrnimmt. Allerdings unterscheidet sich diese Flucht von den bei Fromm noch als dominant beschriebenen Fluchtmechanismen ins Autoritäre bzw. Konformistische. Im Unterschied zu diesen ist die Flucht ins Postfaktische nicht mehr dadurch gekennzeichnet, dass sich das Individuum der Welt anpasst und unterwirft – vielmehr wird stattdessen die Welt angepasst und dem Selbst unterworfen. Ähnlich der Selbst-Verleugnung bei Fromm ist auch diese Welt-Verleugnung Symptom einer gestörten Welt-Selbst-Beziehung, die zu problematisieren ist.
Sejak memasuki era industri, kehidupan masyarakat sudah mulai dimudahkan oleh mesin-mesin teknologi, hingga kemudahan yang diberikan oleh teknologi membawa kemajuan pada peradaban manusia. Akan tetapi, ternyata teknologi juga membawa dampak negatif di dalam masyarakat. Menurut Erich Fromm teknologi tidak lagi hanya menjadi sarana untuk mencapai tujuan, akan tetapi sudah menjadi tujuan dari masyarakat. Sedangkan menurut Kuntowijoyo, teknologi diciptakan oleh manusia untuk membantu pekerja industri agar memperoleh hasil yang efisien, akan tetapi hal sebaliknya yang terjadi adalah pekerja mengikuti kerja dari mesin teknologi. Teknologi yang seharusnya melayani manusia, menjadi manusia yang melayani teknologi. Bagi Erich Fromm dan Kuntowijoyo, masyarakat sedang dalam keadaan dehumanisasi. Oleh karena itu diperlukan humanisasi pada masyarakat, yang bertujuan untuk mengembalikan derajat kemanusiaan. Penelitian ini merupakan studi komparasi antara pemikiran Erich Fromm dan Kuntowijoyo mengenai konsep humanisasi. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode kualitatif dengan menjelaskan keadaan masyarakat era teknologi dan mengumpulkan sumber data dari karya-karya Erich Fromm dan Kuntowijoyo, serta sumber lain yang sesuai dengan tema. Dalam studi komparasi, penelitian ini menggunakan metode komparasi simetris, dengan mengurai pemikiran Erich Fromm dan Kuntowijoyo satu persatu secara lengkap, kemudian membuat perbandingan dari pandangan kedua tokoh tersebut. Hasil dari penelitian ini adalah perbedaan pemikiran Erich Fromm dan Kuntowijoyo yang terletak padalandasan berfikirnya, serta pemakaian aspek spiritual dalam mendukung konsep humanisasi. Sedangkan persamaan pemikiran kedua tokoh tersebut terdapat dalam tiga aspek, yaitu humanisasi, pembebasan dan pemenuhan kebutuhan spiritual.
Einer verbreiteten These folgend wird von alternativ-spirituellen Akteuren keine Änderung der gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse angestrebt, wesentlich sei hingegen die Arbeit an der eigenen Identität im Dienst der >Selbstverwirklichung< (vgl. Lasch 1980, List 1988, Bellah et al. 1996). Die Verantwortung für Probleme und deren Lösungen würden dem Einzelnen aufgebürdet und die komplexen Zusammenhänge von (scheinbarer) Selbstbestimmung und internalisierten gesellschaftlichen Ansprüchen blieben verdeckt. Das heutige spirituelle Feld sei marktförmig strukturiert und statt gemeinschaftlicher Beziehungsformen würden flüchtige Begegnungen zwischen unabhängigen Transaktionspartnern vorherrschen (vgl. Hero 2010). Die Individualisierungsthese (vgl. Beck 1986, Beck & Beck-Gernsheim 2002) bildet den theoretischen Bezugsrahmen für diese oftmals als Kritik vorgebrachten Annahmen. Anhand der für die alternative Spiritualität wichtigen Ansätze von Erich Fromm und Marylin Ferguson werden die beschriebenen Ansichten in der vorliegenden Arbeit relativiert. Inwiefern die in den exemplarischen Selbstzeugnissen formulierten Ansprüche tatsächlich eingelöst wurden und auch für das heutige alternativ-spirituelle Milieu handlungsleitend sind, kann Gegenstand weiterführender Forschungen sein.