Jamie V.

Canauay
MA-Psychology

Erich fromm: A humanistic theory of personality

Biographical sketch: Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm was born in Germany in 1900, the only child of orthodox Jewish
parents.
He had a strict upbringing, similar to Karen Horney
Fromm was influenced by the bible, Freud, and Marx, as well as by socialist
ideology. After receiving his Ph.D., Fromm began studying psychoanalysis and
became an analyst by being analyzed by Hanns Sachs, a student of Freud.
In 1934, Fromm moved to the United States and began a psychoanalytic
practice in New York, where he also resumed his friendship with Karen Horney,
whom he had known in Germany. Much of his later years were spent in Mexico
and Switzerland. He died in 1980.
Fromms basic assumptions about personality
Fromm believed that humans have been torn away from their prehistoric
union with nature and left with no powerful instincts to adapt to a changing
world. But because humans have acquired the ability to reason, they can
think about their isolated condition-a situation Fromm called the human
dilemma.
Individual personality can be understood in the light of human history.

Concept of Human Dilemma

Reasoning facility
Awareness as isolated beings
Permits them to survive
Tendency to solve insoluble dichotomies
Fundamental Dichotomies
Life and Death
o Self-awareness and reason tell us that we will die, but we try to
negate this dichotomy by postulating life after death, an attempt that
does not alter the fact that our lives end with death.
Complete Self- realization and shortness of life
o People try to solve this dichotomy by assuming that their own
historical period is the crowning achievement of humanity, while
others postulate a continuation of development after death.
Separate Individuals and Social Relatedness
o They are aware of themselves as separate individuals, and at the
same time, they believe that their happiness depends on uniting with
their fellow human beings. Although people cannot completely solve
Jamie V. Canauay
MA-Psychology

the problem of aloneness versus union, they must make an attempt

or run the risk of insanity.

The Basic Nature of Human Beings:

Organic Versus Nonorganic Drives: Isolation and Contradiction
o According to Fromm our fundamental motive is self-preservation, which we
fulfill though our inborn organic (instinctual) drives:
a) Hunger
b) Thirst
c) Sex
d) Defense through fight or flight
Nonorganic Drives
1. Since our nonorganic drives are not instinctual, we have no innate program that
ensures their fulfillment. It is all too easy to opt instead for goals that are more
alluring, but result in unhappiness or even in psychopathology.
A. Relatedness - First is relatedness, which can take the form of (1)
submission, (2) power, and (3) love. Love, or the ability to unite with another
while retaining one's own individuality and integrity, is the only relatedness
need that can solve our basic human dilemma.
B. Transcendence - Being thrown into the world without their consent, humans
have to transcend their nature by destroying or creating people or things.
A. Healthy transcendence is characterized by creativity and love,
whereas
B. Pathological transcendence includes hate and malignant
aggression. Similar to Adlers concept of striving for superiority.
i. Benign aggression - genetically determined impulse to
preserve ourselves against threat by attacking.
ii. Malignant aggression - capacity for non-organically motivated
destructiveness that serves no rational defensive purpose.
C. Identity A sense of oneself as a distinct and separate entity. Lower
animals have no sense of identity, but humans need to feel: I am I
D. Frame of Orientation - A set of principles or personal philosophy that
gives meaning to ones life, establishes ones values and goals, and
Jamie V. Canauay
MA-Psychology

defines ones place in the world. Like Jung, Fromm concludes that
life must have a sense of meaning and purpose.
i. Biophilia- A healthy frame. Love of life; a productive frame of
orientation.
ii. Necrophilia An unhealthy frame. Love of death; the most
pathological and dangerous of the nonproductive frames of
orientation. Often occurs in combination with narcissism and
malignant aggression.
E. Rootedness - the need to establish roots or to feel at home again in
the world.
The structure of personality:
Mechanisms of Defense and Escape
Mechanisms of Defense and Escape - An undesirable method for resolving
threatening feelings of isolation and freedom; similar to nonproductive orientation.
Includes authoritarianism, automaton conformity, and malignant aggression.
Three Mechanisms of Escape:
1. Authoritarianism - A nonproductive frame of orientation that involves
powerful desires to dominate others and to submit to others.
2. Malignant aggression (destructiveness) - Destructive behavior that
serves no rational defensive purpose. Its also a nonorganic drive.
3. Automaton conformity - Immersion in a socially acceptable role at the cost
of ones need for identity. One of the three mechanisms of escape.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY:
Productive and Nonproductive orientation
People relate to the world by acquiring and using things (assimilation) and by relating to
self and others (socialization), and they can do so either nonproductively or productively.
A. Productive Orientation - A healthy frame of orientation that involves the fulfillment
of ones positive innate potentials. Characterized by love, biophilia, work that
benefits oneself and others, and rational thought.
B. Nonproductive Orientation - A frame of orientation that is undesirable because it
involves the surrender of ones innate potentials for healthy growth and self-
realization.
a) Exploitative orientation - A nonproductive frame of orientation that seeks
to gain rewards by force or cunning.
Jamie V. Canauay
MA-Psychology

b) Hoarding orientation - A nonproductive frame of orientation that involves

miserliness, compulsive orderliness, and stubbornness.
c) Marketing orientation - A nonproductive frame of orientation wherein one
characterizes oneself as a product that will sell in the social marketplace,
and tries to become what others want.
Concept of Humanity
Fromm believed that humans were "freaks of the universe" because they lacked
strong animal instincts while possessing the ability to reason. In brief, his view is
rated average on free choice, optimism, unconscious influences, and
uniqueness; low on causality; and high on social influences.