Erich Fromm

Question 1

human dilemma

Answer 1

people experience this basic dilemma because they have become separate from nature and yet have the capacity to be aware of themselves as isolated beings

Question 2

the goal of humans

Answer 2

reunite with our very basic nature but @ the same time, we cannot let go of what we already have

Question 3

existential needs

Answer 3

• healthy people find answers to their existence–answers that more completely correspond to their total human needs
• healthy indivs. are better able to find ways of reuniting to the world by productively solving human needs

Question 4

relatedness

Answer 4

• drive for union with another person/s
• three basic ways in which a person may relate to the world: submission, power, and love
• love is the only relatedness that can solve our basic human dilemma

Question 5

transcendence

Answer 5

• defined as the urge to rise above a passive and accidental existence and into the “realm of purposefulness and freedom”
• people can transcend their passive nature either by creating life or destroying it

Question 6

malignant regression

Answer 6

to kill for reasons other than survival

Question 7

rootedness

Answer 7

establish roots or to feel home

Question 8

fixation

Answer 8

• a tenacious reluctance to move beyond the protective security provided by one’s mother
• incestuous feelings are based in the “deep-seated craving to remain in, or to return to, the all-enveloping womb, or to the all-nourishing breasts”

Question 9

sense of identity

Answer 9

capacity to be aware of ourselves as a separate entity. because we have been torn away from nature, we need to form a concept of our self

Question 10

frame of orientation

Answer 10

a road map for humans to be able to act purposefully and consistently

Question 11

non-productive frame of orientation

Answer 11

• no goal: erratic, unable to act purposefully
• follow irrational philosophies

Question 12

burden of freedom

Answer 12

• free from the security of a fixed position
• results in basic anxiety

Question 13

mechanisms of escape

Answer 13

because basic anxiety produces a frightening sense of isolation and aloneness, people attempt to flee from freedom through a variety of escape mechanisms

Question 14

authoritarianism

Answer 14

• give up independence of one’s own individual self and to fuse one’s self with somebody or something outside oneself, in order to acquire the strength that the individual is lacking
• masochism and sadism

Question 15

destructiveness

Answer 15

destroying other persons or nations, destructive people eliminate much of the outside world and thus acquire a type of perverted isolation

Question 16

conformity

Answer 16

• people who conform try to escape from a sense of aloneness and isolation by giving up their individuality and becoming whatever people desire them to be
• more conforming = more powerlessness, more powerlessness = more conforming

Question 17

positive freedom

Answer 17

• a person “can be free and not alone, critical and yet not filled with doubts, independent, and yet an integral part of mankind”
• represents a successful solution to the human dilemma of being part of the natural world and yet separate from it

Question 18

twin components of positive freedom

Answer 18

love and work

Question 19

character

Answer 19

• the most important acquired qualities of personality
• “the relatively permanent system of all non-instinctual strivings through which man relates himself to the human and natural world”
• substitute for instincts

Question 20

people relate to the world in two ways

Answer 20

acquiring and using things (assimilation) and relating to self and others (socialization)

Question 21

nonproductive orientations

Answer 21

• strategies that fail to move people closer to positive freedom and self-realization
• not entirely negative; has positive aspects

Question 22

receptive

Answer 22

feel that the source of all good things lies outside of themselves and that the only way they relate to the world is to receive things

Question 23

exploitative

Answer 23

aggressively take what they desire rather than passively receive it

Question 24

hoarding

Answer 24

• seek to save that which they have already obtained
• hold everything inside and do not let go of anything; keep money, feelings, and thoughts to themselves

Question 25

marketing

Answer 25

• see themselves as commodities, with their personal value dependent on their exchange value, that is, their ability to sell themselves
• the things that they market are superficial and shallow

Question 26

productive orientation

Answer 26

• productive work, love, and thought
• healthy people value work not as an end in itself, but as a means of creative self-expression

Question 27

biophilia

Answer 27

a passionate love of life and all that is alive; concerned with growth and development

Question 28

personality disorders are marked by

Answer 28

a failure to love productively

Question 29

necrophilia

Answer 29

• attracted to death
• destructive behavior is a reflection of their basic character

Question 30

malignant narcissism

Answer 30

• everything belonging to a narcissistic person is highly valued and everything belonging to another person is devalued
• hypochondriasis: obsessive attention to one’s health
• moral hypochondriasis: preoccupation with guilt about previous transgression

Question 31

narcissistic people possess what Horney called

Answer 31

neurotic claims

Question 32

incestuous symbiosis

Answer 32

• extreme dependence on the mother or mother surrogate
• inseparable from the host person; their personalities are blended with the other person and their individual identities are lost
• unable to develop healthy relationships apart from the mother

Question 33

syndrome of decay

Answer 33

• no chance or reuniting with nature
• no chance of developing healthy connections with other people
• no chance of developing a sense of identity