Revision from the Margins: Fromm's Contributions to Psychoanalysis

Fromm's important contributions to the modern development of psychoanalytic thought are often ignored and frequently misunderstood. An early proponent of revisions of psychoanalytic theory and therapy similar to recent trends in object relations, self-psychology and interpersonal psychoanalysis, Fromm was a visionary for a Freudian theory built upon orthodoxies of the past but going beyond them. It is argued here that Fromm's unique role in helping create a new version of psychoanalysis for the 21st century was as sociological as it was intellectual. Fromm's contributions were intimately linked to his institutional positioning close to the center but on the relative margins of the discipline. This paper will outline how sociological dynamics shaped Fromm's revision of psychoanalysis. We will conclude by discussing how Fromm was able to have a more dramatic influence than other Freudian revisionists who were less favourably positioned.     

Istituto Erich Fromm di Psicoanalisi Neofreudiana: Report on how the Institute has taken up Fromm's psychoanalytic teachings and on the terms in which it conceives Fromm's contribution to psychoanalysis

The Institute intends to contribute to the formation of a Frommian research tradition and to its development in Italy. During his lifetime Fromm carried out a daily clinical work on which he based all his theories. The Institute is interested in collecting this wealth of clinical experience through study and research. On the subject of technique, written and recorded documents consist of valuable notes, which are found in various books, and of posthumous works and recorded seminars and interviews. After a brief historical note on the Institute, the Frommian perspective is presented at length with a view to understanding how psychoanalysis reacts to the radical humanism. Emphasis is placed on the idea that Fromm's thought orientation is not an organised school of psychoanalysis but an open and critical contribution. This view offers an explanation of Fromm's abstention to codify a psychoanalytic technique to be applied in a standardised way. Although this report regards above all the clinical psychoanalysis, we must remember great thinkers such as Meister Eckhart and Spinoza, who inspired Fromm's perspective and gave strength to it.     

Psychoanalysis and Human Values

Psychoanalysis can contribute quite a lot to the question of values and to a theory of ethics. While the first part of this presentation is focused on the impact psychoanalysis continues to exert on present day ethical theory, the second part discusses Erich Fromm's particular approach to psychoanalysis. Fromm was the first to reformulate in his psychoanalytic approach the idea of an ethic of the virtues. With his theory of character (and of social character) he made values an integral part of psychoanalytic theory. Hence, what matters most morally from a psychoanalytic stance is the quality of character orientation. Despite the fact that - in Fromm's own socio-psychoanalytic approach - man's character is the product of adaptation to the environment, morality for him is dictated by economic and social requirements - whatever common sense may tell us to the contrary. For Fromm there is an intrinsic primary tendency to growth in all human beings. Thus, morally good is whatever furthers the growth of our own powers by which we relate to the outside world and to ourselves in a loving, "sane" and creative way. The last section reflects some implications of Fromm's approach to understanding values as an integral part of psychoanalytic theory, and finally discusses whether the search for truth and human values is as obsolete as postmodern thinking claims.     

Fromm's Impact on Interpersonal Psychoanalysis: A Well Kept Secret

Erich Fromm was one of the founders of the William Alanson White Institute in New York City and an important contributor to the development of the interpersonal approach to psychoanalysis. Many of Fromm's ideas about psychoanalysis have found their way into the mainstream of analytic thinking. Much of what he taught in supervision and in his lectures had to do with the role of the analyst, the analyst's use of himself in the analytic process and the necessity that the analyst experience what his patient is experiencing. From did not necessarily use terms like projective identification but his understanding presaged much of what analysts talk about today. Fromm himself did not write much about clinical practice. And while he repeatedly expressed his respect for Freud he was explicit in his disagreements. Fromm rejected the notion of the analyst as a blank mirror. Instead, analysis requires a passionate wish for truth both in the analysand and the analyst. Fromm calls this passion biophilic, implying that the unconscious does not only harbor destructive drives that need to be tamed; it also harbors creative drives which, while also irrational, are constructive and need be liberated through the analysis.     

IFPS 1960–1985: A new home for international and German psychoanalysis?

Abstract

The International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies (IFPS) was established in 1962. The first 20 years of the Federation were a time when psychoanalysis was divided into so-called liberal and orthodox factions. The (then orthodox) International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) did not admit all psychoanalytic societies, and some societies did not want to join it. In the IFPS, non-IPA-psychoanalysts from Europe, the USA, and South and Middle America came together to discuss their new approaches to psychoanalysis and to find ways to better cope with their patients’ problems. At the beginning an informal organization of autonomous societies, the IFPS persisted for 12 years without a charter. The first three secretary generals came from the German Psychoanalytical Society and greatly influenced the first few years of the IFPS. The IFPS held several international conferences, and new psychoanalytic societies became members. In 1977, after the VIth Forum in Berlin, the IFPS fell into an identity crisis. The conflicts centered on the assumption of responsibility, the authority of the members, and how to understand the aim and sense of the organization. This article deals with the theoretical background of the early IFPS and the development of its self-concept.     

Clinical Relevance of Social Character and Social Unconscious

The author discusses his recollection of Erich Fromm's views on psychoanalytic work with patients, including the author's treatment of a patient. The remembrance involves Fromm's clinical thinking on social character and the social unconscious, and its relevance to present-day clinical work. The author presents, in detail, his treatment of a 37-year old successful woman which addresses certain of today's clinical views on gender differences that resonate and differ with Fromm's thinking on the treatment of the marketing personality.     

IFPS - Is There a Difference?

This paper tries to answer a question about the difference between IFPS and other psychoanalytical institutions. The author states that there is a linkage between the ethics of psychoanalysis and the ethics of the institution. The ethics can not be represented by rules or standards of prerequisites, but by creating a space where the unconscious as desire, singularity and difference takes place. The bureaucratic organization and the hierarchy in the categories of members of IPA institutions goes straight against the transgressor experience of the unconscious. The training analysis under such conditions leads to an identification process with the training analyst, giving as final result standardized, homogeneous, obedient analysts. The author describes a new experience in the training of analysts in his institution without any kind of interference from IFPS. Finally, he concludes that differences exists between the two institutions and that they are mainly due to the identification process typical for IPA and the process of ''choice'' in IFPS.     

Some reflections on writing the history of the IFPS

Abstract

A knowledge of the history of psychoanalysis strengthens our understanding of its concepts. A specific characteristic of psychoanalysis is that its creative development unfolds in confidential processes. One way to remedy this ‘basic fault’ is extensive and intensive interviews with analysts. In earlier times, collections of correspondence between analysts provided such information. There is very little material on the International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies (IFPS) and its importance in the development of psychoanalysis. The first forums of the IFPS were published in Fortschritter der Psychoanalyse, whereas from 1992 onwards, significant papers have been published in the International Forum of Psychoanalysis. Although not bound to any specific school of psychoanalysis, the journal has been especially open to developments with roots in the so-called Budapest school.     

Integration or Sealing-Over. A Pilot Study of Coping Strategies of Severely Traumatised Patients

This article is an attempt to begin to weave together Freud's work - on dreams here envisioned as the original model for virtual reality - and from Fromm's work - on the impact of the market on personality. The contributions of these two psychoanalysts provide a necessary dual foundation for an understanding of emerging aspects of human psychology that are evolving, at the beginning of the 21st Century, alongside the profound influence of the electronically driven global market. It is time for psychoanalysis to engage more fully in the study of cultural forces. While it is easy to disregard dreams, both in the general culture and of late in psychoanalysis itself, dreams and their interpretation have always been central in human living, in the development of religion and in the birth of psychoanalysis as our own secular religion. Dreams, in their disembodiment and in their fluidity of information transformations have served as one model for developments within cyber culture and virtual living. The destruction of nature is seen as an underlying theme in the development of compatible relativist-subjectivist philosophies and in the growth of cyberculture. Thus, Freud's insights into dreams and Fromm's into the marketing personality are both crucial to an understanding of major contemporary forces.     

Controversies and Conflicts in the Institution of "Open" Psychoanalysis: Cases from the History of the Therapeia Foundation

The institution of psychoanalysis has included controversies, dissensions and expulsions at both the theoretical-methodological and personal-organizational levels. There have also been several intra- and intergroup conflicts in the history of psychoanalysis, and in constructing and patterning the future of psychoanalytic knowledge. In the context of Finnish psychoanalysis, the Therapeia Foundation (founded in 1958) met from the start with resistance from official psychiatry and also from the IPA. For example, in the mid-1960s, D. W. Winnicott, as the President of the IPA, supported the orthodox Finnish psychoanalytic study group (later to become the Finnish Psychoanalytical Society), and pronounced that the Therapeia group was too loose and was not strictly able to use the IPA-recognized designation "psychoanalytic." The Therapeia Foundation and its Training Seminar combined classical psychoanalysis and its new versions with existentialphenomenological views, anthropological medicine, research on "social pathology" and even modern theological research. On the basis of their Swiss analytic training, three Finnish psychiatrists, Martti Siirala, Kauko Kaila and Allan Johansson, organized Therapeian training to incorporate sciences and arts, and skills involving the therapeutic "carrying" of burdens. The multifacted nature of open psychoanalysis was seen to find its proper organizational expression when the Training Seminar of the Therapeia Foundation became, in 1974, a Member of the IFPS.     

Book Reviews

Abstract

Mauricio Cortina, Michael Maccoby, eds. A Prophetic Analyst. Erich Fromm's Contributions To Psychoanalysis. Northvale, NJ: Aronson, 1996.     

Erich Fromm als Psychotherapeut

Erich Fromm (1900?C1980) was a co-founder of the Frankfurt Psychoanalytic Institute and the William Alanson White Institute in New York and finally he founded a training institute of his own in Mexico. However, he never intended to create a therapeutic school of his own. Furthermore, he published hardly anything about the so-called psychoanalytic techniques. All the more informative is the report of Ruth Lesser about her supervisions with Fromm. She describes how Fromm reacted to the presented cases, what kind of a role repression, resistance, transference and countertransference play in the therapeutic relationship and how strongly interested he was in the socially shaped unconscious intentions of the patient. The straightforwardness of the intervention style of Fromm is impressively described both in his empathy and in his confrontation with the unconscious reality. In the last part of the article Fromm??s understanding of the psychoanalytic situation is reflected and the characteristics of his psychoanalytic treatment method are outlined.     

Fromm’s understanding of the Buddhist philosophical theory and psychoanalysis: From the phenomenal ego to the authentic being1

Abstract

Erich Fromm was one of the first psychoanalytic thinkers who was genuinely interested in Asian philosophies. In the first part of this article, I will show Fromm’s imago of Buddhism as a radical, nontheistic, and ethical philosophy “without God.” I will argue that Fromm made an important difference between the phenomenal ego and being that proves crucial for his understanding of psychoanalysis and his critique of modern society. I will also explore Fromm’s synthesis of Buddhist philosophy and psychoanalysis, and show the similarities and differences between them.     

Fromm's Spirited Values and Analytic Neutrality

The analyst and the patient must feel enough hope to sustain their active effort. A significant aspect of the analyst's role is inspiring hope. This seems to require that the analyst take a life-affirming position that violates traditional notions of analytic neutrality. Yet, in facilitating the patient's full self-expression, we do not want to lose the benefits of neutrality. Fromm's work can inspire us to try to integrate an attitude of spirited hope with interpretations whose content neutrally encourages the patient to reveal his whole self.     

Between Thanatos and Eros: Erich Fromm and the psychoanalysis of social networking technology use

Social networking technologies have become a ubiquitous framework for social interaction, serving to organise much of the individual’s social life. Such technological structuring affects not merely the individual’s psyche (as a psycho- technics), it also affects broader aspects of society (as a socio-technics). While social networking technologies may serve to transform society in positive ways, such technologies also have the potential to significantly encroach upon and (re) construct individual and cultural meaning in ways that must be investigated. Erich Fromm, who psychoanalytically describes humans as a product of their society and the economic systems within that society, may provide insight into the influence of social networking technologies in contemporary society. He sees the relationship between the individual and society as being in a constant state of dynamic change. Utilising Fromm’s psycho-societal insight, social networking technologies are shown to conflate and confuse the relation between Thanatos and Eros – the Thanatos of a lifeless and consumerist agenda-filled mechanisation, and the Eros associated with social engagement. Thanatos and Eros are tied together via social networking technologies. This results in, firstly, social networking technologies functioning predominantly to further capitalist agendas through the monetisation of these technologies – particularly in terms of linking commodity fetishism and the foundational social drive of the individual. Secondly, social networking technologies mechanise human action according to predictable behavioural paths through the use of these technologies, especially in terms of how socialisation is possible via these technologies (shaping how platonic and romantic relationships may take place in the contemporary world). Such a mechanisation of interpersonal engagement contrasts with Erich Fromm’s assertion that interpersonal relations (vis-à-vis love) are not “mere emotion”, but rather represent an interpersonal creative capacity and interplay. Fromm’s psycho-societal insights will show how contemporary individuals may take independent and responsible rational action to establish accountable and psychologically beneficial ways of engaging with others through social networking technologies.     

Erich Fromm’s concept of reactive violence

Abstract

This paper explores the current relevance of Fromm’s concept of reactive violence for understanding particular patients and for generating hypotheses about the world we live in. In his discussion of reactive violence, Fromm gives us a nuanced approach to forms of aggression that can be employed in the service of life. According to Fromm, the aim of reactive violence is preservation, not destruction. It is rooted in fear and, he believes, is the most frequent form of violence. This paper traces the evolution of Fromm’s concept of reactive violence, and considers how it might apply to today’s social and political challenges.     

Why do schools of thought fail? Neo-Freudianism as a case study in the sociology of knowledge

A full account of the social production of knowledge requires an understanding of how schools of thought fail, as well as succeed. This paper offers a sociology of knowledge analysis of the collapse of neo-Freudianism as a separate school of psychoanalysis and influential intellectual current. While the existing literature stresses personal conflicts between Karen Horney, Erich Fromm and Harry Stack Sullivan as a major cause of the failure of cultural psychoanalysis, my analysis highlights the sect-like nature of Freudian institutes, the professionalizing dynamics of American psychoanalysis, the contribution of the celebrity-dominated book market and culture, and the highly controversial nature of Erich Fromm's writings and intellectual activity. Neo-Freudianism is conceptualized as a hybrid system that is a combination of a literary phenomena, intellectual movement, faction of a sect, theoretical innovation and therapy. This analysis of hybrid intellectual systems raises larger sociology of knowledge questions about schools of thought and intellectual movements. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Psychoanalyst's Values and Countertransference

On the subject of countertransference we attempt to establish a line of continuity between Freud's own expression "blind spot" and Fromm's idea of "counterattitude". It is pointed out that both expressed the idea of the analyst's unconscious as an "instrument" for understanding the patient's unconscious. It follows that the decision to openly use or not to use countertransference in analysis also depends on the concept we have of it and on its extent. The psychoanalyst's real and illusory values and his convictions with regard to human nature influence the countertransference and the analytic relationship. Analytic listening itself may be distorted by it. We must be highly aware of this to avoid enclosing what the patient says in a theoretic scheme. What is needed, therefore, is an open theoretic scheme, more oriented towards understanding than interpretation. Aspects of analytic communication and of the relationship between language, thought and insight are examined. A humanistic point of view is assumed in distinguishing between the transferral and the real plane, and the reasons behind the legitimacy of such a distinction are expounded.     

Wilhelm Reich and Anna Freud: His expulsion from psychoanalysis

This article describes the growth of hostility towards Wilhelm Reich in the psychoanalytic community over his Marxist ideology and activism as well as disagreements over the death instinct. It brings to the fore the behind the scenes political manipulations between Ernest Jones and Anna Freud to effect the expulsion of Reich both from the Vienna and Berlin local psychoanalytic societies and from the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA). It describes Reich's reactions to these events and the pressure placed on other psychoanalysts to stop supporting him and also the revision of history about the expulsion. It discusses the use of the term "crazy" as it was used in the psychoanalytic movement. Further the article discusses personality attributes of Anna Freud leading to counter-transference possessiveness to children and women, especially patients. It briefly touches on the attitudes of both Sigmund and Anna Freud toward sex and how this furthered the clash with Reich. It discusses the similarity between Anna's actions toward the Burlingham children and what happened to the children of Reich.