Social Drop-Outs and Hippies: Fantasy, Object-Relationship and Aggressiveness

Abstract

Schumacher (1969) gives a good description of the drop-out syndrome, which specifies a subgroup of social drop-outs, called in German “Gammler„:

“The way of life of a social drop-out can be characterized as behaviour which aims at a state of extreme passivity. Typical features of this behaviour are the recurrence of acquiescence and indifference, the rejection of all prudent planning as well as of all notions of efficient performance and, it goes without saying, the rejection of all ambition. To be sure, there are transitional states moving away from an attitude of passively indifferent drift toward more provocative forms of drop-out behaviour…There are, no doubt, all kinds of transitional states ranging from a passive turning aside — in extreme cases leading to the quest for ecstatic experience — to more active and aggressive forms of behaviour. On the whole, what is involved is the stressing of the nonconformist attitude.”