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neptunium1 ago

In 2008, King Carl XVI Gustav made him Commander of the Royal Order of the Polar Star for his services to Sweden.

Time to look into this a bit more.

Michael Maccoby http://www.maccoby.com/MMaccoby/

He graduated from The Mexican Institute of Psychoanalysis where he studied under Erich Fromm

Predatory narcissists https://www.openmindsfoundation.org/erich-fromm-on-predatory-narcissists/

Predatory narcissists were a focus for Erich Fromm, the psychotherapist and humanist who continues to influence public opinion with his well-considered and caring texts.

I’ve recently made the acquaintance of Dan Shaw, and I’m delighted to report that he is joining the Open Minds Advisory Board. Dan is a former member of a yoga cult who for some time has worked as a psychotherapist in New York. He is well known for the help he has given to former cult members over the years. He is also the author Traumatic Narcissism, a fine book, which is of particular use to therapists.

Biophilia – A synopsis of the concept as presented in Erich Fromm’s ‘The Heart of Man’

Fromm is searching for the essence of mankind, the characteristic that defines humans.

“Man is confronted with the frightening conflict of being a prisoner of nature, yet being free in his thoughts; being part of nature, and yet to be as it were a freak of nature; being neither here nor there. Human self-awareness has made man a stranger in the world, separate, lonely, and frightened” (Fromm, 1964, p. 117).

Fromm explores humans’ ‘Genius for Good and Evil’ and our regressive and progressive paths by investigating the dimensions of narcissism (benign-malignant), necrophilia-biophilia and incestuous ties (absent – incestuous symbiosis). In their malignant or destructive expressions, he calls these three concepts the syndrome of decay. This syndrome encompasses all tendencies directed against life and finds its expression in necrophilia, narcissism, and incest. I have always been particularly interested in his concept of biophilia. Hence, I summarised the key aspects of biophilia, as well as its opposite necrophila, below.

Interestingly, Fromm also had something to say about knowledge management: ‘Briefly then, intellectualization, quantification, abstractification, bureaucratization, and reification – the very characteristics of modern industrial society, when applied to people rather than to things, are not the principles of life but those of mechanics. People living in such systems become indifferent to life and even attracted to death‘ (Fromm, 1964, p. 59).