Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionII. Psychodynamic
Theories- Fromm: Humanistic
Psychoanalysis
(^212) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
failure in this area. “Each failure caused a graver wound to his narcissism and a
deeper humiliation than the previous one” (Fromm, 1973, p. 395). As his failures
grew in number, he became more involved in his fantasy world, more resentful of
others, more motivated for revenge, and more necrophilic.
Hitler’s terrible realization of his failure as an artist was blunted by the out-
break of World War I. His fierce ambition could now be channeled into being a great
war hero fighting for his homeland. Although he was no great hero, he was a re-
sponsible, disciplined, and dutiful soldier. After the war, however, he experienced
more failure. Not only had his beloved nation lost, but revolutionaries within Ger-
many had “attacked everything that was sacred to Hitler’s reactionary nationalism,
and they won.... The victory of the revolutionaries gave Hitler’s destructiveness its
final and ineradicable form” (Fromm, 1973, p. 394).
Necrophiliadoes not simply refer to behavior; it pervades a person’s entire
character. And so it was with Hitler. After he came to power, he demanded that his
enemies not merely surrender, but that they be annihilated as well. His necrophilia
was expressed in his mania for destroying buildings and cities, his orders to kill “de-
fective” people, his boredom, and his slaughter of millions of Jews.
Another trait Hitler manifested was malignant narcissism.He was interested
only in himself, his plans, and his ideology. His conviction that he could build a
“Thousand-Year Reich” shows an inflated sense of self-importance. He had no in-
terest in anyone unless that person was of service to him. His relations to women
lacked love and tenderness; he seemed to have used them solely for perverted per-
sonal pleasure, especially for voyeuristic satisfaction.
According to Fromm’s analysis, Hitler also possessed an incestuous symbiosis,
manifested by his passionate devotion not to his real mother but to the Germanic
“race.” Consistent with this trait, he also was sadomasochistic, withdrawn, and lack-
ing in feelings of genuine love or compassion. All these characteristics, Fromm con-
tended, did not make Hitler psychotic. They did, however, make him a sick and dan-
gerous man.
Insisting that people not see Hitler as inhuman, Fromm (1973) concluded his
psychohistory with these words: “Any analysis that would distort Hitler’s picture by
depriving him of his humanity would only intensify the tendency to be blind to the
potential Hitlers unless they wear horns” (p. 433).
Related Research
Although Erich Fromm’s writings are stimulating and insightful, his ideas have pro-
duced very little empirical research in the field of personality psychology. One rea-
son for this may be due to the broad approach Fromm takes. In many ways his ideas
are more sociological than psychological in that his theory deals with alienation
from culture and nature in general, two topics that are more typically covered in a
sociology class than a psychology class. This does not mean, however, that such
broad topics are not important to personality psychology. Quite the contrary, because
though broad and sociological, estrangement from one’s culture is a topic that can be
studied at the individual level in psychological studies and can have implications for
well-being.
206 Part II Psychodynamic Theories