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In this paper I present an analysis of a personal journey, based on Erich Fromm's concept of benign aggression, part of The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973). I analyze its role in the dynamics of change based on the interaction between the psyche and the social. In Fromm's conceptual framework, benign aggression results from an unlived life, shaped by limitations on individuals' freedoms, supported by institutional and oppressive structures in a neo-capitalistic society. I explore how benign aggression, replayed between patient and therapist, can bring about changes in the self and modes of relatedness, leading to the recognition of humanistic values. In my practice, projective identification and attachment -detachment dynamics were experienced as forms of benign aggression, while anger and conflict became a way to acknowledge them. Fragments of two clinical cases illustrate how needs for relatedness-through-conflict are experienced. Relatedness expressed through a negative form of attachment can lead to the co-creation of a psychic space, a "Social Third" where ethical values are experienced and shared. This Frommian conceptual framework and methodology require total connectedness with a subject, together with the recognition and acceptance of an "Other" unto oneself. In my experience, such recognition encourages the emergence of humanistic values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we are studying social identities within a cross-national framework as they are reflected in values regarding social institutions. We compare value items to infer similarities and differences between Japan and the US, but more importantly we analyze value configurations, using factor analysis, as an expression of underlying cultural expectations. We also argue that the way values are transmitted further defines the distinctive cultural basis of social identities. Using a unique data set, The Generations Survey, we propose to contribute theoretically and methodologically to understanding the role of culture in postmodern societies. Our research, based on identical national surveys collected in 1995, provides a systematic way to compare values in two countries. The research builds on and specifies existing ethnographic case studies and in-depth interviews around a variety of themes that shape social identities such as the link between family and work expectations, the role of ethical values in business, the importance of national identification, and the meaning of community involvement. The paper concludes by suggesting that despite homogenizing trends and surface similarities, cultural distinctiveness persists in the ways values cluster and is transmitted in the family, shaping the social identities of Japanese and US respondents.

The article presents information on the effects of ascribed and achieved characteristics on social values in Japan and the United States. There is a widely accepted belief that the structure of values follows the lines of the stratification system and that education, as a component of class, is a basic determinant of the values held by individuals. In modern industrial societies, education rather than tradition or religion, has been shown to play a major role in shaping individual values. James Davis (1982), in a classical study using the General Social Survey (GSS), showed that education was the most pervasive predictor of individual values in a wide range of areas, and that occupational items had little additional impact. Moreover, education has been shown to have a similar effect on values in many industrialized societies. It is therefore reasonable to inquire whether education has a different impact on the structure of values in a society like the United States, which supports an ideology of individual mobility and individual achievement, as compared to Japan, which encourages group solidarity within a more traditional stratification system.