Theories_of_Personality 7th Ed Feist

Feist−Feist: Theories of

Personality, Seventh

Edition

II. Psychodynamic

Theories

7. Fromm: Humanistic
   Psychoanalysis

© The McGraw−Hill^217

Companies, 2009

and culture impinge heavily on personality, people can retain some degree of
uniqueness. Humans are one species sharing many of the same human needs, but
interpersonal experiences throughout people’s lives give them some measure of
uniqueness.

Chapter 7 Fromm: Humanistic Psychoanalysis 211

Key Terms and Concepts

• People have been torn away from their prehistoric union with nature and
  also with one another, yet they have the power of reasoning, foresight, and
  imagination.


• Self-awarenesscontributes to feelings of loneliness, isolation, and
  homelessness.


• To escape these feelings, people strive to become united with others and
  with nature.


• Only the uniquely human needsof relatedness, transcendence, rootedness,
  sense of identity, and a frame of orientation can move people toward a
  reunion with the natural world.


• A sense of relatednessdrives people to unite with another person through
  submission, power, or love.


• Transcendence is the need for people to rise above their passive existence
  and create or destroy life.


• Rootednessis the need for a consistent structure in people’s lives.
  •A sense of identitygives a person a feeling of “I” or “me.”
  •A frame of orientationis a consistent way of looking at the world.


• Basic anxietyis a sense of being alone in the world.


• To relieve basic anxiety, people use various mechanisms of escape,
  especially authoritarianism, destructiveness, and conformity.


• Psychologically healthy people acquire the syndrome of growth,which
  includes (1) positive freedom,or the spontaneous activity of a whole,
  integrated personality; (2) biophilia,or a passionate love of life; and
  (3) lovefor fellow humans.


• Other people, however, live nonproductively and acquire things through
  passively receivingthings,exploitingothers, hoardingthings, and
  marketingor exchanging things, including themselves.


• Some extremely sick people are motivated by the syndrome of decay,
  which includes (1) necrophilia,or the love of death; (2) malignant
  narcissism,or infatuation with self; and (3) incestuous symbiosis,or the
  tendency to remain bound to a mothering person or her equivalents.


• The goal of Fromm’s psychotherapyis to establish a union with patients
  so that they can become reunited with the world.