Erich Fromm - By: Max Scott

Erich Fromm was born in 1900 in Germany. He grew up being influenced by Judaism, the bible, socialism, Freud, and Marx. In 1922, he received his PhD in sociology and trained to be a psychoanalyst. After the Nazis took power, he moved to New York and started a practice.

Erich’s humanistic psychoanalysis theory “looks at people from the perspective of psychology, history, and anthropology. Influenced by Freud and Horney, Fromm developed a more culturally oriented theory than Freud.”

He said that humans are no longer living in a prehistoric world and our primal/animalistic instincts are no longer needed. He said that our ability to reason allows us to adapt to a changing world or “isolated condition”; what he called the human dilemma.

He said that our uniquely human needs (not prehistoric ones) need to be met to create a sense of unity. He listed five existential needs

Relatedness
First is relatedness, which can take the form of (1) submission, (2) power, or (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.
Transcendence
Being thrown into the world without their consent, humans have to transcend their nature by destroying or creating people or things. Humans can destroy through malignant aggression, or killing for reasons other than survival, but they can also create and care about their creations.
Rootedness
Rootedness is the need to establish roots and to feel at home again in the world. Productively, rootedness enables us to grow beyond the security of our mother and establish ties with the outside world. With the nonproductive strategy, we become fixated and afraid to move beyond the security and safety of our mother or a mother substitute.
Sense of Identity
The fourth human need is for a sense of identity, or an awareness of ourselves as a separate person. The drive for a sense of identity is expressed nonproductively as conformity to a group and productively as individuality.
Frame of Orientation
By frame of orientation, Fromm meant a road map or consistent philosophy by which we find our way through the world. This need is expressed nonproductively as a striving for irrational goals and productively as movement toward rational goals.

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