The Psychological Approach The Spiritual Approach The Creative Psyche The Deconstructive Mind Sigmund Freud’s Model of the Human Psyche Understanding the human mind is at the core of psychoanalytic theory. Since the introduction of the theory of Sigmund Freud in the early 1900’s and despite the many advancements in the study of psychoanalytic theory Freud’s basic thoughts retain a strong hold on the shaping of views regarding the theory of the human mind. At the center of Freud’s theory are psychopathologies that result in a mental illness within a subject. It is Freud’s premise that within the human mind is contained in three levels of awareness or consciousness. It is the introduction of these psychopathologies that affect people, thus requiring more than simply talking about them. The effective treatment of these deep seated psychopathologies is psychoanalysis. In the illustration below is Freud’s division of these three levels and the estimated usage of each level. They are the conscious, subconscious, and unconscious. Working together they create our reality. Although acceptance of Freud’s psychoanalytical theory has ebbed and flowed over time few professionals would suggest dismissing it. Within it is a model or concept that has withstood the many tests of time. Etymology The origin of the meaning of the mind offers a long and rich history. Unlike many other words and phrases there is no clear evolution given for its use. Its meaning was more dependent on the context of its usage rather than any single meaning. If spoken of by a philosopher the mind may well mean one’s personality, identity, and their memories. For the religious the mind houses the spirit, an awareness of God, or to the scientist the mind is the generator of ideas and thoughts. The mind has carried with it many diverse labels. In its infancy references to the mind truly were metaphoric. It was not until the 14th and 15th centuries that the generalization of mind to include all mental faculties, thought, volition, feeling, and memory gradually developed. In the late 19th and early 20th century brought psychology to the forefront as a respected science. Due in no small part to the work of Freud and others, the popular focus on the human mind, its role in the behavioral sciences, and the mind/body question solidified. Today, the concept of the mind and its functions is almost always discussed from a scientific point of view. Freud’s Conscious Mind Since consciousness is best understood as having an awareness of something, being able to call it to mind, it would seem simple enough to qualify only those events we can recall as the activities of the human mind. There are two challenges to this view. First, there is the estimate that only about 10% of the minds work is made up of conscious thought and secondly, this view does not explain those random events created within the mind. The two functions that the capabilities of the conscious mind can address are: Its ability to direct your focus. Its ability to imagine that which is not real While an important partner in the triad of the human mind, the conscious mind serves as a scanner for us. It will perceive an event, trigger a need to react, and then depending on the importance of the event, store it either in the unconscious or the subconscious area of the human mind where it remains available to us. Freud’s Subconscious Mind Your subconscious is the storage point for any recent memories needed for quick recall, such as what your telephone number is or the name of a person you just met. It also holds current information that you use every day, such as your current recurring thoughts, behavior patterns, habits, and feelings. The workhorse of the mind/body experience Freud’s subconscious mind serves as the minds random access memory (RAM). “Thus the unconscious mind can be seen as the source of dreams and automatic thoughts (those that appear without any apparent cause), the repository of forgotten memories (that may still be accessible to consciousness at some later time), and the locus of implicit knowledge (the things that we have learned so well that we do them without thinking).” Freud’s Unconscious Mind The unconscious mind is where all of our memories and past experiences reside. These are those memories that have been repressed through trauma and those that have simply been consciously forgotten and no longer important to us (automatic thoughts). It’s from these memories and experiences that our beliefs, habits, and behaviors are formed. A review of the earlier illustration shows the unconscious, sitting a layer deeper in the mind under the subconscious. Although the subconscious and unconscious has direct links to each other and deal with similar things, the unconscious mind is really the cellar, the underground library if you like, of all your memories, habits, and behaviors. It is the storehouse of all your deep seated emotions that have been programmed since birth. Freud’s psychoanalytic theory teaches that it is here, in the unconscious mind that necessary change can occur through the use of psychoanalysis. Comment As has been mentioned Freud’s psychoanalytic theory and related interventions with those showing symptoms of a mental illness is not static. The use of today’s modern psychology in the areas of theory and practice has opened Freudian theory to many new ideas. In the midst of the widespread support and criticism of psychoanalysis there has been significant progress in its use as a valid approach to treatment. If for no other reason than to gain an important historical perspective on mental health treatment Freud’s psychoanalytical theory is worthy of study. The Jungian Model of the Psyche Few people have had as much influence on modern psychology as Carl Jung; we have Jung to thank for concepts like extroversion and introversion, archetypes, modern dream analysis, and the collective unconscious. Psychological terms coined by Jung include the archetype, the complex, synchronicity, and it is from his work that the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) was developed, a popular staple of personality tests today. Among Jung’s most important work was his in-depth analysis of the psyche, which he explained as follows: “By psyche I understand the totality of all psychic processes, conscious as well as unconscious,” separating the concept from conventional concept of the mind, which is generally limited to the processes of the conscious brain alone. Jung believed that the psyche is a self-regulating system, rather like the body, one that seeks to maintain a balance between opposing qualities while constantly striving for growth, a process Jung called “individuation”. Jung saw the psyche as something that could be divided into component parts with complexes and archetypal contents personified, in a metaphorical sense, and functioning rather like secondary selves that contribute to the whole. His concept of the psyche is broken down as follows: The ego To Jung, the ego was the center of the field of consciousness, the part of the psyche where our conscious awareness resides, our sense of identity and existence. This part can be seen as a kind of “command HQ”, organizing our thoughts, feelings, senses, and intuition, and regulating access to memory. It is the part that links the inner and outer worlds together, forming how we relate to that which is external to us. How a person relates to the external world is, according to Jung, determined by their levels of extroversion or introversion and how they make use of the functions of thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition. Some people have developed more of one or two of these facets than the others, which shapes how they perceive the world around them. The origin of the ego lies in the self archetype, where it forms over the course of early development as the brain attempts to add meaning and value to its various experiences. The ego is just one small portion of the self, however; Jung believed that consciousness is selective, and the ego is the part of the self that selects the most relevant information from the environment and chooses a direction to take based on it, while the rest of the information sinks into the unconscious. It may, therefore, show up later in the form of dreams or visions, thus entering into the conscious mind. The personal unconscious The personal unconscious arises from the interaction between the collective unconscious and one’s personal growth, and was defined by Jung as follows: “Everything of which I know, but of which I am not at the moment thinking; everything of which I was once conscious but have now forgotten; everything perceived by my senses, but not noted by my conscious mind; everything which, involuntarily and without paying attention to it, I feel, think, remember, want, and do; all the future things which are taking shape in me and will sometime come to consciousness; all this is the content of the unconscious… Besides these we must include all more or less intentional repressions of painful thought and feelings. I call the sum of these contents the ‘personal unconscious’.” Unlike Freud, Jung saw repression as just one element of the unconscious, rather than the whole of it. Jung also saw the unconscious as the house of potential future development, the place where as yet undeveloped elements coalesced into conscious form. Complexes Complexes, in the Jungian sense, are themed organizations in the unconscious mind centering around patterns of memories, emotions, perceptions, and wishes, patterns that are formed by experience and by an individual’s reactions to that experience. Unlike Freud, Jung believed complexes could be very diverse, rather than individuals simply having a core sexual complex. Complexes often behave in a rather automatic manner, which can lead to a person feeling like the behaviour that arises from them is out of his or her control. People who are mentally ill or mislabeled as “possessed” often have complexes that take over regularly and markedly. Complexes are strongly influenced by the collective unconscious, and as such, tend to have archetypal elements. In a healthy individual, complexes are seldom a problem, and indeed are likely key to balancing the rather one-sided views of the ego so that development can occur. If the person is mentally unwell, however, and unable to regulate his or herself (as seen in those experiencing dissociation between these states), complexes may become overt and more of an issue. In these cases, the ego is damaged, and is therefore not strong enough to make use of the complexes via sound reflection, granting them a full and unruly life of their own. To treat such people, Jung looked more toward future development than simply dealing with their pasts; he tried to find what the symptoms meant and hoped to achieve, and work with them from that angle. The collective unconscious The theory of the collective unconscious is one of Jung’s more unique theories; Jung believed, unlike many of his contemporaries, that all the elements of an individual’s nature are present from birth, and that the environment of the person brings them out (rather than the environment creating them). Jung felt that people are born with a “blueprint” already in them that will determine the course of their lives, something which, while controversial at the time, is fairly widely supported to today owing to the amount of evidence there is in the animal kingdom for various species being born with a repertoire of behaviours uniquely adapted to their environments. It has been observed that these behaviours in animals are activated by environmental stimuli in the same manner that Jung felt human behaviours are brought to the fore. According to Jung, “the term archetype is not meant to denote an inherited idea, but rather an inherited mode of functioning, corresponding to the inborn way in which the chick emerges from the egg, the bird builds its nest, a certain kind of wasp stings the motor ganglion of the caterpillar, and eels find their way to the Bermudas. In other words, it is a ‘pattern of behaviour’. This aspect of the archetype, the purely biological one, is the proper concern of scientific psychology.” Jung believed that these blueprints are influenced strongly by various archetypes in our lives, such as our parents and other relatives, major events (births, deaths, etc.), and archetypes originating in nature and in our cultures (common symbols and elements like the moon, the sun, water, fire, etc.). All of these things come together to find expression in the psyche, and are frequently reflected in our stories and myths. Jung did not rule out the spiritual, despite the biological basis he described the personality as having; he also felt there was an opposing spiritual polarity which greatly impacts the psyche. The Self The Self, according to Jung, was the sum total of the psyche, with all its potential included. This is the part of the psyche that looks forward, that contains the drive toward fulfillment and wholeness. In this, the Self was said to drive the process of individuation, the quest of the individual to reach his or her fullest potential. In this area Jung once again is seen to differ from Freud; in Freudian theory, the ego is responsible for the above process and forms the axis on which a person’s individual psychology spins, whereas in Jungian theory, the ego is just one part which rises out of the (infinitely more complex) self. Persona Jung said that the Persona is an element of the personality which arises “for reasons of adaptation or personal convenience.” If you have certain “masks” you put on in various situations (such as the side of yourself you present at work, or to family), that is a persona. The Persona can be seen as the “public relations” part of the ego, the part that allows us to interact socially in a variety of situations with relative ease. Those who identify too strongly with their personas, however, can run into problems—think of the celebrity who becomes too involved with his or herself as the “star”, the person who cannot leave work at work, or the academic who seems condescending to everyone. Doing the aforementioned can stunt someone’s personal growth a great deal, as other aspects of the self then cannot properly develop, crippling overall growth. The persona usually grows from the parts of people that wished once to please teachers, parents, and other authority figures, and as such it leans heavily toward embodying only one’s best qualities, leaving those negative traits which contradict the Persona to form the “Shadow”. The Shadow Those traits that we dislike, or would rather ignore, come together to form what Jung called the Shadow. This part of the psyche, which is also influenced heavily by the collective unconscious, is a form of complex, and is generally the complex most accessible by the conscious mind. Jung did not believe the Shadow to be without purpose or merit; he felt that “where there is light, there must also be shadow”—which is to say that the Shadow has an important role to play in balancing the overall psyche. Without a well-developed shadow side, a person can easily become shallow and extremely preoccupied with the opinions of others, a walking Persona. Just as conflict is necessary to advancing the plot of any good novel, light and dark are necessary to our personal growth. Jung believed that, not wanting to look at their Shadows directly, many people project them onto others, meaning that the qualities we often cannot stand in others, we have in ourselves and wish to not see. To truly grow as a person, one must cease such willful blindness to one’s Shadow and attempt to balance it with the Persona. Anima and animus According to Jung, the anima and animus are the contra-sexual archetypes of the psyche, with the anima being in a man and animus in a woman. These are built from feminine and masculine archetypes the individual experiences, as well as experience with members of the opposite sex (beginning with a parent), and seek to balance out one’s otherwise possible one-sided experience of gender. Like the Shadow, these archetypes tend to wind up being projected, only in a more idealized form; one looks for the reflection of one’s anima or animus in a potential mate, accounting for the phenomenon of love at first sight. Jung did see either masculinity or femininity as the “superior” side of the gender coin (unlike many of his peers, who favoured masculinity), but merely as two halves of a whole, such as light and shadow, halves which ought to serve to balance one another out. Individuation Individuation, to Jung, was the quest for wholeness that the human psyche invariably undertakes, the journey to become conscious of his or herself as a unique human being, but unique only in the same sense that we all are, not more or less so than others. Jung did not try to run from the importance of conflict to human psychology; he saw it as inherent and necessary for growth. In dealing with the challenges of the outside world and one’s own many internal opposites, one slowly becomes more conscious, enlightened, and creative. The product of overcoming these clashes was a “symbol” which Jung felt would contribute to a new direction where justice was done to all sides of a conflict. This symbol was seen as a product of the unconscious rather than of rational thought, and carried with it aspects of both the conscious and unconscious worlds in its work as a transformative agent. The development that springs from this transmutation, which is so essential to Jungian psychology, is the process of individuation. Alfred Adler’s Model of Human Mind and Personality The question of what drives us—what great force underlies our motivation as individuals, propelling us forward through all manner of trying circumstance—was a matter of longtime fascination for psychologist Alfred Adler. He eventually came to call this motivating force the “striving for perfection”, a term which encapsulates the desire we all have to fulfill our potential, to realize our ideals—a process strikingly similar to the more popular idea of self-actualization. Self-actualization is perhaps the less problematic of the two terms, as one cannot process Adler’s ideas without immediately bumping up against the troublesome nature of the words “perfection” and “ideal”. While the idea of striving to be the best version of one’s self is an obviously positive goal, the concept of perfection is, in psychology, often given a rather negative connotation. After all, perfection likely does not exist, and therefore cannot be reached, meaning that efforts to do so are invariably frustrating and can come full circle to create an extreme lack of motivation (i.e., giving up). Indeed, Adler himself balked at using “perfection” to describe his single motivating force, beginning instead with phrases like aggression drive (to describe the frustrated reaction we have when our basic needs, such as the need to eat or be loved, are not being met)—yet even this term had obvious negative connotations; aggression is, after all, seldom seen as a good thing, and using the term “assertiveness” may have served Adler better. (Interestingly, Freud himself took exception to the term “aggression drive”, though not on the basis that it was overly negative in connotation; instead, Freud felt that it would detract from the pivotal position of the sex drive in psychoanalytic theory. Freud may have had a change of heart in later years, however, as his idea of a “death instinct” bore a great deal of similarity to Adler’s theory.) Another, perhaps better, descriptor used by Adler to refer to basic motivation was compensation, which in this case was meant to denote the process of striving to overcome one’s inherent limitations. Adler postulated that since we all have various issues and shortcomings as people, our personalities develop largely through the ways in which we do (or do not) compensate for or overcome these inherent challenges. Adler later rejected this idea in part (though it still played an important role in his theory; more on that later), as he decided it was inaccurate to suggest one’s problems are the cause for who one eventually becomes. Adler also toyed, early on, with the idea of “masculine protest”, upon observing the obvious differences in the cultural expectations placed on boys and girls, and the fact that boys wished, often desperately, to be thought of as strong, aggressive, and in control. Adler eschewed the bias that suggested men’s assertiveness and success in the world arose from some inexplicable innate superiority. Instead, he saw this phenomenon as a result of the fact that boys are encouraged to be assertive in life, and girls are discouraged from the very same thing. Lastly, before settling on the phrase “striving for perfection”, Adler called his theory the “striving for superiority”—most likely a homage to Friederich Nietzsche, whose philosophies Adler was known to admire. Nietzsche, of course, considered the will to power the basic motive of human life. Adler later amended this phrase, using it more to refer to unhealthy or neurotic striving, likely due to the way it suggests the act of comparing one’s self to others, of attempting to become “superior” to one’s fellows. Teleology The idea of “holism”, as written about by Jan Smuts, the South African philosopher and statesman, was known to have influenced Adler greatly. Smuts posited that, in order to understand people, we have to take them as summations rather than as parts, as unified wholes existing within the context of their environments (both physical and social). To reflect this notion, Adler decided to call his approach to psychology individual psychology, owing to the exact meaning of the word individual: “un-divided.” He also generally avoided the traditional concept of personality, steering clear of chopping it up into internal traits, structures, dynamics, conflicts, etc., and choosing instead talk about people’s “style of life” (or “lifestyle”, as we would call it today; the unique ways in which one handles problems and interpersonal relations). Here again Adler differed a great deal from Freud, who felt that the things that happened in the past (e.g. early childhood trauma), shaped the nature of people in the present. Adler was essentially forward looking, seeing motivation as a matter of moving toward the future, rather than a product of our pasts driving us with only our limited awareness as to how and why. This idea that we are drawn towards our goals, our purposes, our ideals is known as “teleology”. Teleology was remarkable in the way it removed necessity from the equation; we are not merely living life in a “cause and effect” manner (if X happened, then Y must happen later) or on a set course toward an immobile goal; we have choice, and things can change along the way as we pursue our ideals. Fictions and fictional finalism Adler was also influenced by philosopher Hans Vaihinger, who believed that while mankind would never discover the “ultimate” truth, for practical purposes, we need to create partial truths, frames of reference we use as if they were indeed true. Vaihinger dubbed these partial truths “fictions”. Both Vaihinger and Adler believed that people use these fictions actively in their daily lives, such as using the absolute belief in good and evil to guide social decisions, and believing that everything is as we see it. Adler referred to this as “fictional finalism” and believed that each individual has one such dominating fiction which is central to his or her lifestyle. Inferiority Once Adler had fleshed out his theory on what motivates us as beings, there remained one question to be answered: If we are all being pulled toward perfection, fulfillment, and self-actualization, why does a sizeable portion of the population end up miserably unfulfilled and far from perfect, far from realizing their selves and ideals? Adler believed that some people become mired in their “inferiority”; he felt that we are all born with a sense of inferiority (as children are, of course, smaller and both physically and intellectually weaker than adults), which is often added to by various “psychological inferiorities” later (being told we are dumb, unattractive, bad at sports, etc.) Most children manage these inferiorities by dreaming of becoming adults (the earliest form of striving for perfection), and by either mastering what they are bad at or compensating by becoming especially adept at something else, but for some children, the uphill climb toward developing self-esteem proves insurmountable. These children develop an “inferiority complex”, which proves overwhelming over time. To envision how an inferiority complex can mount until it becomes overwhelming, imagine the way many children flounder when it comes to math: At first they fall slightly behind, and get discouraged. Usually, they struggle onward, muddling through high school with barely-passing grades until they get into calculus, whereupon the appearance of integrals and differential equations overwhelms them to the point they finally give up on math altogether. Now, apply that process to a child’s life as a whole; a feeling of general inferiority seeds doubt which fosters a neurosis, and the youngster becomes shy and timid, insecure, indecisive, cowardly, etc. Unable to meet his or her needs through direct, empowering action (not having the confidence to initiate such), the individual often grows up to be passive-aggressive and manipulative, relying unduly on the affirmation of others to carry them along. This, of course, only gives away more of their power, makes their self-esteem easier to cripple, and so on. Of course, not all children dealing with a strong sense of inferiority become shy and timid and self-effacing; some develop a superiority complex, in a dramatic act of overcompensation. These young people often become the classic image of the playground bully, chasing away their own sense of inferiority by making others feel smaller and weaker, but may also become greedy for attention, drawn to the thrill of criminal activity or drug use, or heavily biased in their views (becoming bigoted towards others of a certain gender or race, for example). Psychological types While Adler did not spend a lot of time on neurosis, he did identify a small handful of personality “types” that he distinguished based on the different levels of energy he felt they manifested. These types to Adler were by no means absolutes, it should be noted; Adler, the devout individualist, saw them only as heuristic devices (useful fictions). The first type is the ruling type. These people are characterized early on by a tendency to be generally aggressive and dominant over others, possessing an intense energy that overwhelms anything or anybody who gets in their way. These people are not always bullies or sadists, however; some turn the energy inward and harm themselves, such as is the case with alcoholics, drug addicts, and those who commit suicide. The second type is the leaning type. Individuals of this type are sensitive, and while they may put a shell up around themselves to protect themselves, they end up relying on others to carry them through life’s challenges. They lack energy, in essence, and depend on the energy of others. They are also prone to phobias, anxieties, obsessions and compulsions, general anxiety, dissociation, etc. The third type is the avoiding type. People of this type have such low energy they recoil within themselves to conserve it, avoiding life as a whole, and other people in particular. In extreme cases, these people develop psychosis—the end result of entirely retreating into one’s self. Adler also believed in a fourth type: the socially useful type. People of this type are basically healthy individuals, possessed of adequate, but not overbearing, social interest and energy. They are able to give to others effectively as they are not so consumed by a sense of inferiority that they cannot look properly outside of themselves. Conclusion Adler’s theories may lack the excitement of Freud’s and Jung’s, being devoid of sexuality or mythology, but they are nonetheless practical, influential, and highly applicable. Other more famous names, such as Maslow and Carl Rogers, were fans of Adler’s work, and various students of personality theories have espoused the idea that the theorists called Neo-Freudians (such as Horney, Fromm, and Sullivan) probably ought to have been called Neo-Adlerians instead. Eric Fromm and Model of the Social Unconscious The truth is often realized through balance, found in the middle ground between opposing extremes—a reality Fromm embraced when developing his theory of the unconscious. Fromm blended the ideas of both Freud and Marx, creating a compromise between the Freudian emphasis on the unconscious, biological drives, repression, etc. (the belief that the character is determined by biology), and Marx’s belief that people are a product of their society (particularly the economic systems therein). Fromm’s theory was no mere derivative, however; he added the revolutionary concept of freedom to these deterministic systems, granting people the ability to transcend the various determinisms described by Freud and Marx. To Fromm, freedom was central to human nature. Humans, according to Fromm, actually try to escape from this freedom through the following ways: Authoritarianism. Freedom, for all its promise of excitement, is also a lonely prospect; true freedom is associated with having no commitments, and nothing to lose—it is marked by a profound separateness. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that we seek to escape this freedom by fusing ourselves with others. One of the more primitive ways in which we do this is by becoming a part of an authoritarian system, either by submitting to it (joining an existing structure) or by becoming authoritarian (applying structure to others). Regardless of your chosen method, the result is the same: you escape your separate identity. Fromm used the terms masochism & sadism to denote the extreme versions of authoritarianism, and observed that the sadist, no matter his apparent power, feels as compelled to act out his role as the masochist, and is thus not free to choose his actions. Authoritarianism is by no means limited to dictatorships and other extreme examples, however; mild versions of it are found in many places—think of the relationship between students and professors, for instance: Students seek structure, and the professor adheres to his notes. As harmless and natural as this interaction may seem, for the students, it’s a means to avoid taking any responsibility for their learning, and for the professor, it’s a way of eschewing the real, challenging, and perhaps controversial issues of his field. Destructiveness. Authoritarians respond to a painful existence by effectively erasing themselves via the systems they inhabit; destroyers, on the other hand, try to erase the world around them so it cannot cause pain. Many seemingly random acts of brutality, vandalism, humiliation, crime, terrorism, and so on, can be accounted for by this manner of escape from freedom. Not all destruction winds up inflicted on the physical world, however; Fromm also observed that, if a person’s desire or ability to destroy is limited by factors in the environment, he or she may redirect it inward. This typically manifests as drug addiction, alcoholism, and other forms of behaviour which appear at first self-indulgent, but ultimately prove harmful to the individual. Fromm in effect reversed the order of Freud’s death instinct, seeing self-destructiveness as frustrated destructiveness, and not vice versa. Automaton conformity. In many modern societies, equally is highly valued; as such, authoritarians have a hard time finding a hierarchy rigid enough to hide in. Ergo, some of those attempting to escape from freedom wind up hiding in conformity to the dominant culture; they become masters at blending in with the crowd, the ultimate social chameleons. In being so like their fellows, these people avoid feeling along through a state of perfect homogeneity—but of course, they invariably not true to themselves, and find there is an unsettling discord between their true colours and the mask they show the world. This is inevitable, Fromm believed, because humanity’s true nature is freedom—ultimately, escapes from freedom therefore alienate us from ourselves. Families Why do different people choose different methods of escaping from freedom? Why do some people go so far with it, and others not? Fromm believed that family dysfunction informed one’s choice of escape a great deal. After all, almost all of us must practice how to dominate and submit to function within society, as almost all societies contain hierarchies, and naturally, we first do so in the home, during childhood. He defined two kinds of what he called “unproductive families”, which he felt provoked some of the more extreme forms of escape: Symbiotic families. Symbiosis—when two organisms have become interdependent and cannot live without each other—may have its place in nature, but within the family, such patterns are inherently destructive. Symbiotic families are invariably smothering, with some members in effect “swallowing up” others, stunting their personal growth, with the classic example being those children who turn into mere reflections of their parent’s wishes and/or unfulfilled dreams. There are, however, multiple ways in which this pattern may play out; sometimes, the child “swallows” the parent, managing to either dominate or manipulate the parent into servitude. This is particularly common in societies which encourage masculine authority; little boys may “practice” for adult roles by lording over their mothers. Withdrawing families. These aloof, controlled families have always existed, but in some societies, have risen to dominance over the last few hundred years. They are marked by demanding parents who have high, rigidly defined standards for their children, and who seldom react with unrestrained anger over failures. Instead, these families punish in a cold, calculated way that is purported to be for the child’s “own good”… Or simply withdraw affection and instill guilt. This “cold war” style of parenting typically creates children who are strongly driven to succeed in whatever their culture defines as success, but also encourages the absolute reverse of the docile overachiever: The rebellious, destructive escapist. Fromm also believed in healthy and productive families, of course, which he felt resulted from parents taking on the responsibility to teach their children reason, but doing so in a loving environment. With such an example to follow, children learn to acknowledge their freedom and to take responsibility for themselves, turning into productive members of society. The social unconscious Families, of course, do not arise from the ether; they too are subject to influence, and tend to reflect the society and culture around them. Fromm was quick to point out that we “soak up our society with our mother’s milk.” In doing so, we bring society so close to us that we forget that it is just one of probably infinite ways to deal with the issues of life. We come to intrinsically believe that our way is the right way, the natural way (hence the criticism of so many “divergent” behaviours as being somehow “unnatural” even when, as with homosexuality, they do in fact occur elsewhere in nature). In this our learning can be said to be so thorough that it has become unconscious: The social unconscious, to be precise. This form of learning is insidious for the illusion of freedom that it creates; we believe that we are acting according to our own free will because our reactions have become too innate to be felt as products of something external, but we are nevertheless following a script, one which we are so used to we have simply forgotten it is there. Fromm felt that we could most thoroughly understand our social unconscious by examining our economic systems. As such, his five personality orientations are strongly defined in economic terms: The receptive orientation. These people wait for the world to come to them, believing that they will get what they need eventually. They see goods and satisfactions as coming from outside themselves, and typically are the product of symbiotic families. These people are generally passive, and as such, associated with the masochistic form of authoritarianism (these individuals inhabit the same niche as Freud’s oral passive, Adler’s leaning-getting, and Horney’s compliant personality). Receptive orientations are not always negative, however; in moderate form, they are accepting and optimistic. The exploitative orientation. These people believe that if you want something, you need to go out and take it. For them, there is in fact a thrill in the act of taking: Wealth and ideas are better when successfully stolen, and love that is achieved by coercion is all the sweeter. Those of the exploitative orientation were usually on the “swallowing” side of the symbiotic family, and embody the masochistic extreme of authoritarianism (occupying the same niche as Freud’s oral aggressive, Adler’s ruling-dominant, and Horney’s aggressive types). These individuals are not always aggressive, conceited, and seducing, however; healthier examples of the type are assertive, proud, and captivating—natural leaders. The hoarding orientation. As the name suggests, these people are obsessed with the idea of keeping what is theirs; their world is one of possessions and potential possessions, and this concept includes loved ones. People of this orientation typically came from withdrawing families, and are associated with the kind of indulgence that inevitably becomes destructiveness. Freud grouped these people as being of the anal retentive type, Adler the avoiding type, and Horney the withdrawing type. If one looks beyond the stubbornness and stingy, unimaginative attitude associated with the extremes of this type, it too has positive potential, sometimes creating people who are simply steadfast, economical, and practical. The marketing orientation. These people are the original masters of self-promotion, seeing selling themselves as the ultimate path to success. They create the perfect “image” for themselves and market it aggressively, treating even love like a sale, a transaction. Marriage contracts are beloved of these individuals. Fromm believed that this is the major orientation of the modern industrial society, a society which he felt favours the cool withdrawing family, and chooses automatic, all-consuming conformity as its escape from freedom. For this orientation neither Freud, nor Adler or Horney, have an equivalent. There is, of course, a certain glamour about this orientation—it is purposeful, youthful, and social in its healthiest form. But of course, one does not have to look far to note how the media’s obsession with fashion, fitness, youth, thrills, novelty, and sexuality has damaging consequences. The productive orientation. Just as Fromm believed in healthy, productive families, he believed in healthy, productive individuals: Those without masks, who work with their biological and social natures without sacrificing freedom and personal responsibility. Typically being the result of the productive family, these people were loved but not smothered, and given reason more than rules, all of which taught them the value of achieving freedom from conformity. Fromm felt that these families, and individuals, occur only by chance at present as the kind of society that would more predictably create them does not yet exist. Fromm theorized that this society would be a product of what he called humanistic communitarian socialism… Humanistic in the sense that this “ideal” society would be oriented towards human beings, rather than some higher entity (be it God or something man-made). Fromm felt that the four “negative” orientations were the result of people living in the “having mode”, where all the focus is placed on consuming, obtaining, and possessing, to the point where our possessions end up possessing us. To be of the productive orientation, Fromm believed that we must exist in what he called the being mode. Those in the being mode are defined by their actions; they eschew living with a mask on, and instead experience life directly through relating to others and practicing individual freedom and responsibility.