Prologue: Erich Fromm’s Relevance for Our Troubled World

Erich Fromm became a major psychoanalyst and public intellectual with the publication of his first book Escape from Freedom in 1941. In this book, he analyzed the historical trends that led to the rise of Nazi Germany. Combining his training as sociologist and psychoanalyst, Fromm showed how Europe had emerged from an enclosed medieval world into dynamic capitalist societies that brought with this transformation contradictory trends. One trend led toward greater freedom from the bonds of feudalism, while a second trend planted the seeds for an authoritarian regression into the horrors of fascism. As Roger Frie notes in his article in this issue Fromm was the only psychoanalyst of his generation that embarked on an analysis of the rise of fascism and authoritarianism as it took root in Germany. This audacity and courage was to mark the rest of his career and the twenty books and numerous articles he published during his life time. The books ranged from establishing the philosophical foundation of radical humanism and a revision of Freud’s basic character types in Man for Himself (1947); a book on dreams and fairy tales in The Forgotten Language (1951); a socio-psychoanalytic study of contemporary society in The Sane Society (1955); a psychoanalytic examination of love in The Art of Loving (1956); bringing to the attention of the world the early works of Karl Marx that set the philosophical and anthropological foundation for his analysis of capitalism in Marx’s Concept of Man (1961); sounding alarm bells about the dangers of atomic war between the Soviet Union and the United States in May Man Prevail (1961); a radical reinterpretation of the old testament and its traditions in You shall be as Gods (1966a); an analysis of the roots of good and evil and the toxic combination of individual and group narcissism in The Heart of Man (1964); a comprehensive socio-psychoanalytic study of a Mexican village that validated his theory of social character in Social Character in a Mexican Village (Fromm & Maccoby, 1970); a major multidisciplinary study of human aggression in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973); and his last book, a beautiful examination of two ways of being in the world, To Have or to Be? (1976). This list is not comprehensive. My intention is just to give an idea of the breadth and depth of Fromm’s scholarship. Many of his books became best sellers and all were written in a clear jargon-free style. Next to Freud he is the most read psychoanalyst in the world.

This raises the question of why Fromm’s work was almost forgotten in the United States for roughly 50 years, and why there is now a renewed interest in his work. Neil McLaughlin, who is also a contributor to this issue, has done an excellent job of explaining this phenomenon in an article How to become a forgotten intellectual: The rise and fall of Erich Fromm (1998). In the late 1960s and 1970s the New Left dismissed Fromm as the Norman Vincent Peale of psychoanalysis who watered down the more radical implications of Freud’s work. Lynne Layton in her article in this issue provides a personal account of how this happened. As a graduate student in comparative literature in the 1970’s Layton was part of the editorial collective of the journal Telos whose mission was to bring to The United States the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School, of which Fromm was an early member. Russell Jaccoby, who was on the Telos editorial board in 1975 had published his book Social Amnesia that was highly critical of Fromm and took sides with Marcuse in the famous Marcuse-Fromm debate published in Dissent magazine 1955–1956. In this debate, Marcuse dismissed Fromm as a conformist whose popularity in books like the Art of Loving was gained at the expense of ignoring the degree of alienation in modern societies that made love impossible. Although Layton points out that in her view Fromm won the debate “hands down” that was not the consensus at the time. The result of these dismissals was that Layton and other members of the collective did not read Fromm, and he disappeared from New Left activists’ knowledge and from academic sociological circles.

This does not explain why Fromm was not read in most psychoanalytic institutes in the United States. I think the major reason was that, except for his book on dreams, his books dealt with a variety of subject matters that were ancillary to their clinical concerns. With a few exceptions such as Jessica Benjamin, Nancy Chodorow, Lynne Layton and Neil Altman, most analysts were interested in establishing their identities within psychoanalysis and learning the craft and were not interested in using psychoanalysis to understand and critique society.

All this has changed dramatically in the past few years with a revival of interest in Fromm’s work (Cortina, 2015; Durkin, 2014; Durkin & Braune, 2020; Freidman, 2013; Funk, 2022; Funk & McLaughlin, 2015; Seyed et al., 2014) – to which this issue contributes. This dramatic change is due to a confluence of events. The main factors have been Trump’s presidency in the United States and the emergence of extreme right-wing populist movements in many parts of the world. This sharp turn to an extreme right in the United States coincided with a global pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement that raised consciousness of systematic racism and police brutality, and the January 6^th insurrection that attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election of Joe Biden.

In response to this perfect storm, many psychoanalysts and psychotherapists of all stripes are recognizing that all “politics are personal” and these issues that are convulsing the country are directly affecting their work with patients. This social storm has also forced many training programs and psychoanalytic institutes to confront the lack of diversity among their faculty and student body and to try to make changes to correct this widespread and difficult problem.

So, it’s not surprising that many socially minded psychoanalysts and psychotherapists are discovering or rediscovering the work of Erich Fromm. Through his many books and articles Fromm used psychoanalysis to examine social pathologies that are hidden and normalized through socially constructed filters and ideologies. He called for change from a radical humanistic perspective that sees the flourishing of every human being and a reverence for life as overarching values that should guide all our efforts to make this a better and more humane world.

Overview of the articles in this issue

Peter L. Rudnytsky in his article The Social Determinants of Psychoanalytic Therapy: Fromm’s Anti-Authoritarian “Calling Card” credits Fromm’s 1935 article on the social determinants of psychoanalytic therapy as “one of the greatest papers in the psychoanalytic literature.” According to Rudnytsky it shows Fromm at his best as an independent and courageous spirit. In the article, Fromm praises Freud for creating a treatment in which a radical openness and truthfulness are central values. But he criticizes Freud’s authoritarian patricentric attitude as reflecting the social values and prejudices of the bourgeois Victorian society of his time. Fromm criticizes Freud’s authoritarian view that any deviations from his work were signs of an unresolved neurosis. Fromm contrasts Freud’s attitude with the work of Sandor Ferenczi and Georg Groddeck, with whom Fromm had frequent contacts in the late 1920s and early 1930s, who represented a more humane and philanthropic attitude. Fromm credits Groddeck for liberating him from the social prudery of his time and enabling him to adopt an attitude toward patients that “was not soft, but full of humanity and friendliness” (p. 159). Fromm notes that for Groddeck “the patient was at the center, and it was the analyst’s task to serve him” (p. 159).

Roger Frie’s article Long Shadows of Racism and Genocide: Learning from Erich Fromm’s Social Psychoanalysis notes that Fromm’s socio-psychoanalytic approach was a radical departure from mainstream psychoanalysis. Fromm’s fundamental approach was that humans are by nature social animals and he believed that “individual psychology is fundamentally a social psychology, or in Sullivan’s terms, the psychology of interpersonal relations” (Fromm, 1941, p. 290).

Fromm was a deeply private man and most of his correspondence was destroyed. But Frie was able to study the few remaining letters from Fromm and his family members which testify to the enormous efforts Fromm made to try to help many family members escape from Germany.

Frie highlights an aspect of Fromm’s social psychoanalysis that is quite relevant to our time. In The Heart of Man published in 1964 Fromm drew a direct link between the racism in Nazi Germany and the racism toward Black Americans. As Frie notes “In a manner reminiscent of Escape from Freedom, Fromm argued that the social and economic anxieties experienced by many Whites created fertile ground for their racism: “Economically and culturally deprived” Whites who have no “realistic hope of changing” their situation have “only one satisfaction … being superior to another racial group that is singled out as inferior.” According to Fromm, members of this group felt that “‘even though I am poor and uncultured I am somebody important because I belong to the most admirable group in the world – I am white;’ or, ‘I am Aryan’” (1964, p. 76). Fromm noted that group racial narcissism and the malignant narcissism of individuals are directly related. Written 60 years ago, this description captures the dynamic between Trump and many of his followers.

I have already referred to Lynne Layton’s article explaining why Fromm’s work was ignored while she was a graduate student in the late 1970s. In her article, Erich Fromm: Ancestor of Social Psychoanalytic Practice, Layton makes good on her intent to rehabilitate and bring back to life Fromm’s legacy. She compares Fromm’s concept of social unconscious with her concept of normative unconscious processes. As opposed to individual character that is unique to every person, social character refers to shared character traits, values, and practices that are adaptive to prevailing socio-economic conditions. These shared traits operate mostly at unconscious or implicit levels “so that a person will want to do what they have to do” in order to function in their society (Fromm & Maccoby, 1970, p. 18). Layton’s concept of normative unconscious processes has its origin in looking at the normative oppression of women that exists in most societies and is reproduced unconsciously. She named this form of oppression the “heterosexist unconscious.” But Layton soon realized that other types of oppression based on racism and class are also ubiquitous and “normative” in society. So she ended with the more inclusive term “normative unconscious processes” to refer to this broader category of oppressions that are reproduced unconsciously. Fromm’s concept of social character also has an inclusive connotation. But instead of oppression, Fromm used the language of “the pathology of normalcy” to refer to the unconscious reproduction of these socially patterned defects. Layton points out that a full understanding of social character requires an analysis of the historical account that led different forms of oppression to become accepted as “normal.” Fromm certainly held this view. A historical perspective was essential in both his explanation of Nazism in Escape From Freedom and his explanation of different social character types among peasants in the Mexican study (Fromm & Maccoby, 1970).

Rainer Funk in his article On the Psychodynamics of Right-Wing Populism: A Frommian Perspective argues that the current resurgence of right-wing movements in many parts of the world do not fit with the classical authoritarian dominant-submissive dynamics of early fascist movements, but can be better understood as reactive narcissistic constructions of identity. He describes one particular narcissistic construction that he calls an “ego oriented” social character. In this construction individuals inflate their self-esteem by identifying with new technological gadgets. They devalue the need for others who are different from themselves and are not part of this technology-based group narcissism. Funk believes this narcissistic construction of reality is driven by the fast rate of change of modern economies that require a maximum of flexibility and a devaluation of dependency needs. He thinks the classical authoritarian social character is still seen in countries that have hierarchical authoritarian political systems.

Ilene Philipson in her article The Plague of Certitude: Why Fromm Matters Today notes that an attitude of intolerance and certitude have been appearing in a variety of analytic settings. As an example, she notes that in a recent list serve debate an esteemed faculty member of one of the institutes she belongs to disagreed with another psychoanalyst and said “He is a troll. DO NOT LISTEN TO HIM!” As another example of this attitude of certitude in one of the institutes she belongs to which was doing a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training, one speaker stated that it is the “impact not intention” that counts. As Philipson notes, ignoring intention goes against cultivating empathy and being able to engage with patients by seeing the issues they struggle with from their point of view, whether we agree with their perspective or not. This exercise of perspective taking and mentalization is a necessary condition to create a respectful and empathic dialogue with patients. Philipson contrasts the attitude of certitude with the work of Erich Fromm who spoke out when he saw attitudes of intolerance and authoritarianism in psychoanalysis. She cites as an example Fromm’s defense of Sandor Ferenczi after Ernest Jones, in the last volume of his biography of Sigmond Freud, attributed Ferenczi’s deviations from Freud to his having become psychotic. Fromm got in touch with people who knew Ferenczi before he died who all disputed Jones slanderous account. Ferenczi died of a severe case of pernicious anemia. Philipson notes that rather than publishing his finding in a psychoanalytic journal where it would have little or no impact, Fromm chose to publish his defense of Ferenczi in Saturday Review, an influential weekly magazine, so it would reach a wider audience. It is worth quoting what Fromm says at the end:

“I have given such a detailed description of the fantastic constructions of Dr Jones, partly in order to defend the memory of gifted and devoted men who cannot defend themselves any more, and partly to show in a concrete example the party-line spirit to be found in certain quarters of the psychoanalytic movement” (Fromm, 1958, p. 55). Fromm’s courageous defense of Ferenczi is indeed the antithesis of the plague of certitude that Philipson sees creeping up in psychoanalytic circles.

Neil McLaughlin and Neil Wegenschimmel in their article How Erich Fromm Can Help Address the Jordan Peterson Problem in Psychoanalysis note that the political polarization that is tearing America apart has spread from the elections and street protests to the business world and the professions and is coming to psychoanalytic institutes. Universities, especially in the social sciences and humanities, are more central to cultural wars on race, gender, nationalism, and violence issues than therapeutic training institutes and in clinical consulting rooms. But the recent resignation of the president of a prominent national psychoanalytic association suggests it is just a matter of time before these issues must be confronted head-on in the psychoanalytic community. The authors use the “Jordan Peterson problem” to highlight the problems of the success and influence Peterson is having as a right wing provocateur and conservative activist. Peterson is an important foil in this broader debate despite his reactionary politics and irresponsible behavior on-line because as a public intellectual he has millions of readers again engaging with depth psychology. Peterson will use the attempt to strip him of his license by the Ontario college of psychotherapists to continue his campaign against “left wing authoritarian woke culture.” More than any other radical psychoanalytic theorist Fromm provides a framework for a defense of psychoanalysis that addresses existing and emerging internal problems that must be addressed head on or the profession will face an even more serious “crisis of psychoanalysis” than the one Fromm described in the 1970s.

Matheus Romanetto’s article, Is There Room for Otherness in Humanism? Erich Fromm’s Alternative, describes four types of objections to humanism. The first objection is political in nature and objects to the way universal claims of false views of human nature have been used to defend slavery, multiple manifestations of racism, or the greed and competitiveness of free market economies. As Romanetto points out, Fromm would be the first to agree with this objection. The second objection to humanism that Romanetto describes is ethical in nature. Here, the objection is that humanism makes claims to universal ways of living or being, while ignoring the diversity of historical and cultural manifestations of the human condition. Romanetto notes that Fromm believed that each human being has the seeds of all humanity within him, and the more any individual can develop his singularity and uniqueness, the more he can see the humanity of others and affirm the stranger. The flourishing of selfhood and being able to affirm the humanity of others are, as Romanetto points out, conjunctive processes in Fromm’s work. Romanetto describes the third stance against humanism as ecological in nature. Here the objection is not so much the lack of appreciation for the diversity of ways of being human, but rather our relationship with other species and to the environment. By claiming the uniqueness of our species and its special place in nature, so the argument goes, humanism loses sight of the uniqueness of other species. And can also lose sight of the ecological balance we need to strike with the environment and its finite resources. Romanetto imagines Fromm’s response to the ecological objection as being contained in his later work with his concepts of biophilia and “a reverence for life.” Fromm saw biophilia and reverence for life in all its forms as a central normative imperative, to which humanism and respect for human dignity were a particular case. An attitude of reverence for life supports efforts to halt global warming, the overexploitation of our natural resources and the disappearances of thousands of species at a very rapid rate.

The fourth objection to humanism that Romanetto describes is technological in nature. Here, the claim is that technological advances have made it possible to modify our genetic make-up so that it is now becoming possible to transcend the natural constraints of our species. The objection to humanism is that it is too restrictive and naively ignores the possibilities of transcending the biological and evolutionary constraints. This is the weakest objection to humanism. Fromm’s response to this objection would be to say that just because something can be done technologically doesn’t mean it should be done.

Julio Boltvinik in his article Erich Fromm – His Views on the Human Condition and Human Needs: Comparative Analysis with Maslow’s and Maccoby’s Need Schemes does us a great service in showing us how Fromm derived his views of human needs and his humanistic philosophy based on an evolutionary interpretation of what makes us human. Froom’s interpretation of the human condition served as a unifying theme in all his work. When he first offered an interpretation of the human condition and human nature in Man for Himself (1947) there was very little known about the prehistory of our species. Yet he got many things right. In comparison with other species humans have an enormous adaptive capacity, that Fromm attributed to a relative lack of instincts that determine behavior (but see Cortina’s revision of this concept in this issue). He also noted that a combination of having a huge neocortical expansion of the brain and being born in a relatively helpless state created an enormous need for protection during our extended childhood. More than any other species we create cultural and social environments to which we must adapt. Humans are constantly remaking themselves through the immense span of time of the prehistory and history of our species. And yet Fromm believed that amidst all these changes there is a set of universal needs and strivings that make us human. These conditions create what Fromm referred to as a set of existential dichotomies. Chief among these existential dichotomies is life becoming aware of itself. Self-awareness, reason, and imagination disrupt the harmony with nature making us an anomaly, a “freak of nature.”

In addition to bringing to our attention the enormous importance of Fromm’s view of the human condition, Boltvinik compares Fromm’s list of basic human needs and strivings with that of Abraham Maslow and Michael Maccoby. In my opinion this comparison helps us see the strengths and weaknesses in these proposed schemes. The comparison also demonstrates that there is no final consensus and the effort to describe basic human needs is still a work in progress.

Cortina’s article Rethinking Erich Fromm’s Humanism and His View of Human Nature is an attempt to put Fromm’s view of human nature and his radical humanism on a stronger sociobiological basis. Fromm saw human nature as the result of having lost our instincts that determine behavior, together with having an enormous expansion of our neocortical brain and being born in a helpless state. Cortina argues that not only have we not lost instincts, but that our three social instincts: attachment, group instinct and sexual instinct have been significantly transformed in comparison with our closest great ape relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos. This transformation has made us an ultrasocial and highly cooperative primate. Cortina argues that these instincts form the core of universal strivings that make us human.

Cortina explains that the constant transformation of our species is due to the fact that humans have two forms of inheritance. A genetic inheritance that is the basis of all life forms, and a second form of inheritance that is cultural in nature. We humans create the cultures in which we live and to which we must adapt. The cultural innovations on tool making, art forms, hunting and gathering, music, art, rituals, cultural practices, and creating systems of meaning are passed on to future generations. The cumulative effect of this transmission of cultural knowledge and practices through thousands of generations has made us a dynamic species that has dominated the world. Cortina concludes by noting that our group instincts are a blessing and a curse. We can care and support groups we identify with and belong to. But we can also demonize and dehumanize groups whom we see as threats or as enemies. Once we lose the capacity for empathy, we can become the most destructive and cruelest species on earth.

Sandra Buechler in her article Erich Fromm: Clinical Mountain Guide begins by quoting Fromm, who likens the role of an analyst to a mountain guide “who doesn’t carry the client up the mountain but sometimes tells him: ‘This is a better road,’ and sometimes even uses his hand to give him a little push, but that is all he can do.” Her article has two parts. The first is about the role theory plays in clinical practice, and the second part is about the impact Fromm had on Buechler’s clinical work. Buechler states, regarding theory, that our attention to patients is our most important intervention, and theory helps focus our attention to issues that we might otherwise not see. Besides this conceptual and orienting function of theory, a third function of theories is to provide emotional support and inspiration to persist with patients with whom we might feel stuck through sometimes long and difficult stretches of time. Fromm inspired Buechler to see the work with patients as a series of paradoxes. The most central paradox that Buechler had to come to terms with was how to hold Fromm’s passionate commitment to humanistic values and the search for truth in therapy while at the same time creating a neutral and safe place for patients to explore the multiple issues and conflicts that bring them to therapy. This is not an easy balance to maintain. But Buechler says, whether we like to admit it or not, our values will influence our therapeutic practice and it is better for us to be fully aware of what those values are.

Daniel Burston in his essay Remembering The Sane Society: An American Lament describes movingly how reading Fromm’s The Sane Society (1955) as an adolescence had a profound impact on his development. He has come back to this book several times. On revisiting The Sane Society one more time he compares where the United States was when Fromm wrote the book and where we are now as a nation. In The Sane Society Fromm depicted an affluent society that amidst all its wealth had become a conformist, consumer-oriented society. This sense of alienation and shallowness was not seen or experienced as a defect because it was covered up by what Fromm called the “pathology of normalcy,” a socially patterned defect that remained invisible. As Burston notes, as incisive as his analysis in The Sane Society was, compared to the present it was a much saner society than the one we are living in today. We have regressed into authoritarian populism that is on the brink of fascism and to an intensely polarized nation without a sense of common good or purpose. Hence, the subtitle of this essay, An American Lament.

Lynn Chancer in her article How Fromm’s Ideas Resonate Politically as well as Philosophically: The Contemporary Case of Guaranteed Income revisits the arguments that Fromm made for a universal guaranteed income in a 1966 volume devoted to the subject (Fromm, 1966b). Inspired by Fromm’s arguments Chancer wrote on the subject 30 years later (Chancer, 1997). And now another 30 years have passed and she makes the case for why implementing a guaranteed income is more important than ever. Chancer offers a brief history of the idea showing that a guaranteed income has been proposed by people from the right and the left of the political spectrum. Chancer then marshals four arguments in favor of a guaranteed income: technologic and political, social, moral-ethical and psychic-libidinal. The technological argument is that in the gig economy, robotization and artificial intelligence will make many jobs based on manual labor obsolete. There will be an urgent need to create a social safety net based on a guaranteed income so that people who lose their jobs can survive and develop new skills in the new green economy. The political argument is that without this safety net of a guaranteed income workers will not be able to organize to demand retraining and creation of new decent paying jobs that will supplement what they receive as a guaranteed income. The social argument is that a guaranteed income would dramatically ameliorate the anguish and desperation of losing a job and not being able to provide for necessities. A guaranteed income would have effects in reducing the desperation of poverty, mental health crises and crimes. The ethical/moral argument is that providing a universal guaranteed income immediately legitimizes government subsidies and avoids stigmatizing government programs that go to the poor, who are often forced to find work to receive their benefits, a mean spirited policy that is being currently revived in many Republican states. By avoiding pitting one group against another a universal guaranteed income will create a greater sense of social solidarity counteracting the extreme excesses of American individualism. The psychic/libidinal argument is a typically Frommian argument, namely, that by providing a guaranteed income people are free to explore creative activities such as making music, gardening, writing poetry or enjoying family life and friends. In Chancer and Fromm’s view a guaranteed income it is the single most significant social policy that could unleash the productive capacities of citizens to live better and more fulfilling lives and move us toward a saner society. In her final section, Chancer discusses some of the main objections to guaranteed income and refutes each one of them.

Mauricio Cortina, M.D.

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Mauricio Cortina

Mauricio Cortina, M.D., is a faculty member of the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and The New Washington School of Psychiatry and the Instituto Mexicano de Socio-psicoanalisis A.C. in Mexico City. He is a psychiatric fellow of the American Academy of Psychodynamic Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis and winner of the 2019 Bowlby and Ainsworth Award. He edited with Michael Maccoby A Prophetic Analyst: Erich Fromm’s Contributions to Psychoanalysis (1996), and Leadership, Psychoanalysis, and Society (2022). He edited with Mario Marrone Attachment Theory and the Psychoanalytic Process (2003) and Apego y psicoterapia: Un paradigma revolucionario (2017). He has published more than 30 chapters and articles on the work of Erich Fromm, attachment theory and human evolution.