M1. Lesson 6: Humanistic Psychoanalysis

Question 1

While people have been torn away from nature, they have what still?

Answer 1

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.

Question 2

What does self-awareness contribute to?

Answer 2

Self-awareness contributes to feelings of loneliness, isolation, and homelessness.

Question 3

What do people do to escape loneliness, isolation, and homelessness?

Answer 3

To escape these feelings of loneliness, isolation, and homelessness, people strive to become united with others and with nature.

Question 4

What can move people toward a reunion with the natural world?

Answer 4

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

Question 5

What is a sense of relatedness?

Answer 5

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

Question 6

What is transcendence?

Answer 6

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

Question 7

What is rootedness?

Answer 7

Rootedness is the need for a consistent structure in people’s lives.

Question 8

What is a frame of orientation?

Answer 8

A frame of orientation is a consistent way of looking at the world.

Question 9

What do people do to relieve basic anxiety (Humanistic Psychoanalysis)?

Answer 9

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

Question 10

What do psychologically healthy people acquire (Humanistic Psychoanalysis)?

Answer 10

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) love for fellow humans.

Question 11

What is basic anxiety?

Answer 11

Basic anxiety is a sense of being alone in the world.

Question 12

What is a sense of identity?

Answer 12

A sense of identity gives a person a feeling of “I” or “me.”

Question 13

What is positive freedom?

Answer 13

the spontaneous activity of a whole, integrated personality

Question 14

What do non-psychologically healthy people do?

Answer 14

Other people, however, live nonproductively and acquire things through passively receiving things, exploiting others, hoarding things, and marketing or exchanging things, including themselves.

Question 15

What are extremely sick people motivated by?

Answer 15

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.

Question 16

What is the goal of Fromm’s psychotherapy?

Answer 16

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

Question 17

What is Fromm’s basic thesis?

Answer 17

Erich Fromm’s basic thesis is that modern-day 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.

Question 18

What makes humans the freaks of the universe?

Answer 18

This combination of lack of animal instincts and presence of rational thought makes humans the freaks of the universe.

Question 19

Who influenced Fromm?

Answer 19

Fromm was trained in Freudian psychoanalysis and influenced by Karl Marx, Karen Horney, and other socially oriented theorists.

Question 20

What does Fromm’s theory emphasize?

Answer 20

Fromm developed a theory of personality that emphasizes the influence of sociobiological factors, history, economics, and class structure.

Question 21

What does Fromm’s humanistic psychoanalysis assume?

Answer 21

Fromm’s humanistic psychoanalysis assumes that humanity’s separation from the natural world has produced feelings of loneliness and isolation, a condition called basic anxiety.

Question 22

Besides being a personality theorist, Fromm was also what?

Answer 22

Fromm was more than a personality theorist. He was a social critic, psychotherapist, philosopher, biblical scholar, cultural anthropologist, and psychobiographer.

Question 23

What are the perspectives that Fromm’s humanistic psychoanalysis uses to look at people?

Answer 23

Fromm’s humanistic psychoanalysis looks at people from a historical and cultural perspective rather than a strictly psychological one. It is less concerned with the individual and more concerned with those characteristics common to a culture.