From Matter to Life to Mind...
AN UNFOLDING CONSCIOUSNESS

Eric Fromm

"�.While for Karl Marx truth was a weapon to induce social change, for Freud it was the weapon to induce individual change; awareness was the main agent in Freud's therapy. If, so Freud found, the patient can gain insight into the fictitious character of his conscious ideas, if he can grasp the reality behind these ideas, if he can make the unconscious conscious, he will attain the strength to rid himself of his irrationalities and to transform himself...Marx's statement, 'The demand (for society) to give up the illusions about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions,' also could have been made by Freud. Both wanted to free man from the chains of his illusions in order to enable him to wake up and to act as a free man..."

Excerpts from "Beyond Chains of Illusion - My Encounter with Marx & Freud" by Erich Fromm... (at Amazon.com)

"...If a man asks himself how he ever became interested in those fields of thought which were destined to occupy the most important place throughout his life, he will not find it easy to give a simple answer. Perhaps he was born with an inclination for certain questions, or perhaps it was the influence of certain teachers, or of current ideas, or of personal experiences which led him along the path of his later interests - who knows which of these factors have determined the course of his life? Indeed, if one wanted to know precisely the relative weight of all these factors, nothing short of a detailed historical autobiography could even attempt to give the answers..."

On Marx and Freud

"�.While for Karl Marx truth was a weapon to induce social change, for Freud it was the weapon to induce individual change; awareness was the main agent in Freud's therapy. If, so Freud found, the patient can gain insight into the fictitious character of his conscious ideas, if he can grasp the reality behind these ideas, if he can make the unconscious conscious, he will attain the strength to rid himself of his irrationalities and to transform himself. Freud's aim, 'Where there is Id there shall be Ego,' can be realized only through the effort of reason to penetrate fictions and to arrive at the awareness of reality. 

It is precisely this function of reason and truth which gives psychoanalytic therapy its unique feature among all forms of therapy. Each analysis of a patient is a new and original venture of research. While it is true, of course, that there are general theories and principles which can be applied, there is no pattern, no 'formula' which could be applied to the individual patient or be helpful to him if it were applied. Just as far Marx the political leader must be a social scientist, so for Freud the therapist must be a scientist capable of doing research. For both, truth is the essential medium to transform, respectively, society and the individual; awareness is the key to social and individual therapy.

Marx's statement, "The demand to give up the illusions about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions,' also could have been made by Freud. Both wanted to free man from the chains of his illusions in order to enable him to wake up and to act as a free man.

The � basic element common to both systems �s their humanism. Humanism in the sense that each man represents all of humanity; hence, that there is nothing human which could be alien to him. Marx was rooted in this tradition, of which Voltaire, Lessing, Herder, Hegel, and Goethe are some of the most outstanding representatives. Freud expressed his humanism primarily in his concept of the unconscious. He assumed that all men share the same unconscious strivings, and hence that they can understand each other once they dare to delve into the underworld of the unconscious. He could examine the unconscious fantasies of his patient without feeling indignant, judgmental, or even surprised. The 'stuff from which dreams are made' as well as the whole world of the unconscious became an object of investigation precisely because Freud recognized its profoundly human and universal qualities. �. the power of truth and humanism are the guiding and propelling principles of Marx's and Freud's work. 

Yet this introductory chapter that deals with the common soil from which both their ideas grew, would be truncated if it did not deal at least with one other feature common to both systems: their dynamic and dialectic approach to reality. The discussion of this topic is all the more important because in the Anglo Saxon countries Hegelian philosophy has been a dead issue for a long time so that the dynamic approach of Marx and Freud is not readily understood. 

Let us begin with a few examples, both from the realm of psychology and that of sociology.

Let us assume a man who has been married three times. The pattern is always the same. He falls in love with a good looking girl, marries her, and is ecstatically happy for a short time. Then he begins to complain that his wife is domineering, that she curtail, his freedom, etc. After a period alternating between quarrels and reconciliations, he falls in love with another girl - in fact, one very similar to him wife. He gets a divorce and marries his second 'great love.' However, with slight modifications the same cycle takes place, and again he falls in love with a similar type of girl, and again he gets divorced and marries his third 'great love.' Again the same cycle occurs, and be falls in love with a fourth girl, being convinced that this time it is the true and real love (forgetting that he was convinced of that every time in the past), and wants to marry her. 

What would we say to the last girl if she asked us our opinion about the chances for a happy marriage with him? There are several approaches to the problem. The first one is a purely behaviouristic one; the method of this approach is to conclude from past behaviour, the future behaviour. This argument would run: since he already has left a wife three times, it is quite likely that he will do it a fourth time, hence it is much too risky to marry him. This approach, empirical and sober, has much to be said for it. 

But the girl's mother, when using this approach, might find it difficult to answer one argument of her daughter's. This argument says that while it is perfectly true that he did act in the same way three times, it does not follow that he will do so again this time. Either, so this counter-argument will say, he has changed - and who can say that a person may not change? Or the other women were not really the kind he could love deeply, while she, the last one, is really congenial to him. 

There is no convincing argument the mother could use against this reasoning. In fact, once she sees the man and notices that he is very much enraptured with her daughter, and that he talks with great sincerity about his love, even the mother might change her mind and be won over to the daughter's position.

The mother's and the daughter's approaches are both undynamic. They either make a prediction based on past performance, or one based on present words and actions, yet they have no way of proving that their predictions are better than guesswork.

What is in contradistinction, the dynamic approach? The essential point in this approach is to penetrate through the surface of past or present behaviour and to understand the forces which created the pattern of past behaviour. If these forces still exist, it is to be assumed that the fourth marriage will end not differently from the previous ones. If on the other hand, there has been a change in the forces underlying his behaviour one would have to admit the possibility or even the likelihood of a different outcome, in spite of the past behaviour. 

What are the forces we speak of here? They are nothing mysterious, nor figments of abstract speculation. They are recognizable empirically if one studies the behaviour of the person in the proper way. We may assume, for instance, that the man had not cut the tie to his mother; that he is a very narcissistic person with a deep doubt of his own manliness; that he is an overgrown adolescent in constant need of admiration and affection, so that once he has found a woman who fulfils these needs he gets bored with her soon after the conquest is made; he needs new proofs of his attractiveness and hence must look far another woman who can reassure him. At the same time he is really dependent on women, afraid of them; and hence any prolonged intimacy makes him feel imprisoned and chained. The forces at work here are his narcissism, his dependence, his self-doubt producing needs which lead to the kind of action we have been describing. 

These forces, as I said, are by no means the result of abstract speculation. One can observe them in many ways: by examining dreams, free association, fantasies, by watching his facial expression, his gestures, his way of speaking, and so forth. Yet they are often not directly visible but must be inferred. Furthermore; they can be seen only within the theoretical frame of reference in which they have a place and meaning. 

Most importantly, these forces are not only not conscious as such, but they are in contradiction to the conscious thought of the person involved. He is sincerely convinced that he will love the girl forever, that he is not dependent, that he is strong and self assured. Thus, the average person thinks: if a man truly feels he loves a woman how can one predict that he will leave her after a short time, just by referring to such mythical entities as 'fixation to mother,' 'narcissism,' and so on? Are one's eyes and ears not better judges than such deductions?�

�. Freud discovered that man as a mental entity is a structure of forces, many at them contradictory, charged with energy. Here too, what matters is the scientific task of understanding the quality, intensity, and direction of these forces in order to understand the past and predict alternatives for the future. Here too, change is possible only inasmuch as the given structure of the forces permits it. Furthermore, true change in the sense of energy changes within the given structure does not only require a profound understanding of these forces and the laws according to which they move but also great effort and will�.

�.While in individual psychoanalysis, Freud would look for the individual factors of repression, it would nevertheless be erroneous to assume that his concept of repression is to be understood only in individual terms. On the contrary, Freud's concept of repression also has a social dimension. The more society develops into higher forms of civilization, the more instinctive desires become incompatible with the existing social norms, and thus the more repression must take place. Increasing civilization, to Freud, means increasing repression. But Freud never went beyond this quantitative and mechanistic concept of society and he did not examine the specific structure of a society and its influence on repression.

If the forces which cause repression are so powerful, how did Freud ever hope to make the unconscious conscious, to 'derepress' the repressed? It is well known that the psychoanalytic therapy he devised serves precisely this end. By analysing dreams, and by understanding the 'free associations,' the uncensored and spontaneous thoughts of the patient, Freud attempted to arrive, with the patient, at knowing what the patient did not know before his unconscious.

What were the theoretical premises for this use of the analysis of dreams and of free association for the discovery of the unconscious? Doubtlessly in the first years of his psychoanalytic research, Freud shared the conventional rationalistic belief that knowledge was intellectual, theoretical knowledge. He thought that it was enough to explain to the patient why certain developments had taken place, and to tell him what the analyst had discovered in his unconscious. This intellectual knowledge, called 'interpretation,' was supposed to effect a change in the patient. 

But soon Freud and other analysts had to discover the truth of Spinoza's statement that intellectual knowledge is conducive to change only inasmuch as it is also affective knowledge. It became apparent that intellectual knowledge as such does not produce any change, except perhaps in the sense that by intellectual knowledge of his unconscious strivings a person may be better able to control them - which, however, is the aim of traditional ethics, rather than that of psychoanalysis. 

As long as the patient remains in the attitude of the detached self-observer, he is not in touch with his unconscious, except by thinking about it; he does not experience the wider, deeper reality within himself. 

Discovering one's unconscious is, precisely, not only an intellectual act, but also an affective experience, which can hardly be put into words, if at all. This does not mean that thinking and speculation may not precede the act of discovery; but the act of discovery is not an act of thinking but of being aware and, still better perhaps, simply of seeing. 

To be aware of experiences, thoughts or feelings which were unconscious, does not mean thinking about them, but seeing them, just as being aware of one's breathing does not mean to think about it. 

Awareness of the unconscious is an experience which is characterized by its spontaneity and suddenness. One's eyes are suddenly opened; oneself and the world appear in a different light, are seen from a different viewpoint. There is usually a good deal of anxiety aroused while the experience takes place, while afterwards a new feeling of strength is present.

The process of discovering the unconscious can be described as a series of ever-widening experiences, which are felt deeply and which transcend theoretical, intellectual knowledge.
In the question of the possibility of making the unconscious conscious, it is of the foremost importance to recognize factors which obstruct this process. There are many factors which make it difficult to arrive at insight into the unconscious. Such factors are mental rigidity, lack of proper orientation, hopelessness, lack of any possibility to change realistic conditions, etc. 

But there is probably no single factor which is more responsible for the difficulties of making the unconscious conscious than the mechanism which Freud called resistance.

What is resistance? Like so many discoveries, it is so simple that one might say anyone could have discovered it - yet it required a great discoverer to recognize it. 

Let us take an example: your friend has to undertake a trip of which he is obviously afraid. You know that he is afraid, his wife knows it, everyone else knows it, but he does not know it. He claims one day that he does not feel well, the next day that there is no need to make the trip, the day after that that there arc better ways to achieve the same result without traveling, then the next day that your persistence in reminding him of the trip is an attempt to force him, and since he does not want to be forced, he just won't make the trip, and so on, until he will say that it is now too late to go on the trip, anyway, hence there is no use in thinking any further about it. 

If, however, you mention to him, even in the most tactful way, that he might not want to go because he is afraid, you will get not a simple denial, but more likely a violent barrage of protestations and accusations which will eventually drive you into the role of having to apologize, or even - if you are now afraid of losing his friendship - of declaring that you never meant to say that he was afraid and, in fact, ending up with enthusiastic praise of his courage.

What has happened? The real motivation for not wanting to go is fear. (What he is afraid of is of no significance for the purposes of this discussion, suffice it to say, that his fear could be objectively justified or the reason for his fear merely imagined.) This fear is unconscious. Your friend, however, must choose a 'reasonable' explanation for his not wanting to go - a 'rationalization.'

He may discover every day a new one (anyone who has tried to give up smoking knows how easily rationalizations come) or stick to one main rationalization. It does not matter, in fact, whether the rationalization as such is valid or not; what matters is that it is not the effective or sufficient cause far his refusal to go. 

The most amazing fact, however, is the violence of his reaction when we mention the real motive to him, the intensity of his resistance. 

Should we not rather expect him to be glad, or even grateful for our remark, since it permits him to cope with the real motive for his reluctance? But whatever we think about what he should feel, the fact is that he does not feel it. Obviously he cannot bear the idea of being afraid. But why?

There are several possibilities.

Perhaps he has a narcissistic image of himself of which lack of fear is an integral part, and if this image is disturbed, his narcissistic self-admiration and, hence, his sense of his own value and his security would be threatened. Or perhaps his super-ego, the internalized code of right and wrong, happens to be such that fear or cowardice are bitterly condemned; hence to admit fear would mean to admit that he has acted against his code. Or, perhaps, he feels the need to save for his friends the picture of a man who is never frightened because he is so unsure of their friendship, that he is afraid they would cease liking him if they knew he was afraid. 

Any of these reasons may be effective, but why is it that they are so effective? 

One answer lies in the fact that his sense of identity is linked with these images. If they are not 'true' - then who is he? What is true? Where does he stand in the world? 

Once these questions arise, the person feels deeply threatened. He has lost his familiar frame of orientation and with it his security. The anxiety aroused is� caused by the threat to one's identity. Resistance is an attempt to protect oneself from a fright which is comparable to the fright caused by even a small earthquake - nothing is secure, everything is shaky; I don't know who I am or where I am. In fact this experience feels like a small dose of insanity which for the moment, even though it may last only for seconds, feels more than uncomfortable�

�.. The term 'the unconscious' is actually a mystification (even though one might use it for reasons of convenience, as I am guilty of doing in these pages). There is no such thing as the unconscious; there are only experiences of which we are aware, and others of which we are not aware, that is, of which we are unconscious. If I hate a man because I am afraid of him, and if I am aware of my hate but not of my fear, we may say that my hate is conscious and that my fear is unconscious; still, my fear does not lie in that mysterious place: 'the' unconscious. But we repress not only sexual impulses or affects such as hate and fear; we repress also the awareness of facts provided they contradict certain ideas and interests which we do not want to have threatened�."

"In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two... Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says 'I need you because I love you.'...What matters in relation to love is the faith in one's own love; in its ability to produce love in others... We are only capable of knowing, and caring for the other if we are also capable of understanding, caring, and knowing ourselves..."