Erich Fromm was one of the main pioneers in renewing the conception of psychoanalysis, once it was established in Europe. Fromm was opposed to the reductionist view of psychoanalysis that detailed that the human being is conditioned by a set of unconscious forces that cannot be controlled by our will aware. Faced with this opposition, the humanistic psychoanalysis. From then on, Erich Fromm developed his theories focused on psychoanalysis and criticism of the Western world. He published more than thirty books and is considered, today, one of the most highly valued psychologists in psychology. If you are interested in knowing who it was Erich Fromm: biography, theory and books, keep reading this article on Psychology-Online.
Index
- Erich Fromm biography
- Erich Fromm's theory
- Erich Fromm books
- Erich Fromm's Art of Loving
Biography of Erich Fromm.
Erich Fromm was born on March 23, 1900 in Frankfurt, Germany, in a family of Orthodox Jewish origin, which had had several generations of ancestors serving as rabbis. Only son of Naftalí Fromm and his mother Rosa Krause, he grew up feeling identified in the religion that surrounded him, wanting to follow the same directions as the ancestors of his family, relating he same:
But nevertheless, the arrival of World War I produced a change in mentality of Erich Fromm, when verifying that the people he associated with as people with a strong spirit pacifist, he jumped on the bandwagon of the rulers' violence, in addition to seeing cousins and uncles die close. From then on, his main objective was focused on being able to understand how government forces were able to influence in a crowd of the population, moving peacefully, to enter a struggle that would hardly bring benefits to the population.
After the war, Erich Fromm unleashed a critical attitude towards everything, without taking anything for granted. This new way of seeing the world was what he brought him closer to Freud's ideas, to understand individual mechanisms, and Marx, to understand social ones. His thinking ended up being radically shaped when he began to study law at the University of Frankfurt and later sociology in Heidelberg.
However, he never stopped having contact with the Jewish people. His doctoral thesis in 1922 focused on Jewish Law, which Fromm considered essential for the Jewish people to be able to hold together.
In 1924, Fromm began his practice in psychoanalysis in a therapeutic center in the city of Hielderberg, where his sociological thinking acquired new psychological terms. His first psychoanalyst, Frieda Reichmanm, ended up being his wife, separating in 1930-1931 and divorcing in 1940, however, they maintained a friendship relationship throughout their lives.
His psychoanalytic training was completed in Berlin, at the Berlin Institute, where he later he opened his first office and he definitively abandoned his beliefs of orthodox religion, to convert to atheism. Then, at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, he was getting closer to Marxist ideas.
In the year 1931, he fell ill with tuberculosis and he traveled to Davos to improve himself, where he lived for a year. At that time, Nazism was on the rise to come to power and the Institute had to emigrate to Geneva until 1934 and, later, to Columbia University in New York. In the big city, he had the opportunity to have a lot of contact with the great thinkers, also refugees from the United States. With this, in 1943 he obtained the recognition of being one of the founding members of the New York branch of the Washington School of Psychiatry.
Subsequently, he remarried Henney Gurland, with whom he would move to Mexico in 1950. However, she died two years later, while he was teaching at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). In addition to this, he was claimed by many of the great universities to give talks and expose his books. In 1953, he remarried Annis Glove.
In the middle of the Vietnam War, Fromm returned to postulate new preferences and ideals, becoming fully involved in the peace movements. During this time, he wrote his great best seller "The Art of Loving" (1956).
Erich got a professorship at Michigan State University, being later appointed as a professor at New York University in 1962. Then, in 1965, he retired from his professional practice, even so, he continued to give talks at many of the large universities and colleges.
Erich Fromm wanted to spend his last years in Switzerland, in Muralto, where in 1980 he died of a heart attack.
Erich Fromm's theory.
The factor that unleashed a great transcendence in Erich Fromm's investigations was that unlike his fellow psychoanalysts, he started from sociology and not from medicine or psychiatry. It was as a result of this perspective, on which Fromm was able to observe the human being in great complexity, as an integral whole. From this conception of the person as a whole, he was able to expose the idea that not everything responds to biology, to organic pathology, since the environment and the Vital circumstances and above all, the society in which the person finds himself, are conditioning factors of the human being and not only his condition organic.
In order to understand Erich Fromm's theory, we must know that this was influenced by the ideas of Freud and Marx. Freud based his theory on the unconscious drives that conditioned our conscious wills, as well as our biological drives. On the other hand, Marx postulated that individuals were determined by the economy and society.
Faced with this, Fromm tried to unify the two movements, psychoanalysis and sociology, calling it analytical social psychology. Erich Fromm considered that these two practices excluded the freedom of man. Freud's psychoanalysis conditioned man to his biological nature, while Marx associated him with socio-economic determinism.
This is how Fromm established the freedom of man as the central point of his theory, seeking that man transcends the determinisms of his own biology and society. Faced with this, from the sociocultural point of view, Fromm's main objective was not to achieve a social adjustment or adaptation, but the integrity of the individual himself. On the other hand, from the biological point of view, he emphasized that the origin of psychic problems is not based solely on the organic condition. Since a set of environmental variables interfere that also condition the origin of the problems psychic, such as interpersonal relationships, culture, models of coping with problems,... Based on these ideas Erich Fromm established a theory of personality.
In summary, in front of these two systems established by two great thinkers, who supported a deterministic theory, Erich Fromm encouraged society to transcend the conditions attributed to them and to seek freedom and their own reason for to be. Something that is reflected in Erich Fromm's convictions.
Erich Fromm's books.
In addition to being one of the most influential thinkers of our time, Erich Fromm was a great writer, who wrote dozens of books among them, some examples that we can find:
- The Escape from Freedom (1941)
- Man for Himself (1947)
- Art of Loving (1956)
- The Healthy Society (1955)
- The Anatomy of Human Destructivity (1973)
- The Heart of Man (1964)
- The fear of freedom (1941)
- Can man survive? (1961)
- And You Will Be Like Gods (1966)
Erich Fromm's art of loving.
The Art of Loving, a book published by Erich Fromm in 1956, had a great impact, becoming a best seller, because it allowed several generations to reflect on one of the most important issues of our reason for being, love. The book helps the reader to wondering about some aspects of love which may seem simple at first, such as: what does it mean to love? or how do we let go of ourselves to experience this feeling? In addition, it manifests the different forms of the expression of love, such as brotherly, filial, parental love, to oneself,… these forms being a trait of maturity and not only a personal relationship.
The Erich Fromm's art of loving, also teaches us that love is not mechanical or temporary, it is an art that is obtained thanks to its learning. With this he shows us that to learn to love, the person must act as he would if he wanted to learn any art discipline, such as music, painting, medicine... Finally, he emphasizes that we should not live looking for success, power or money, but rather to learn and cultivate the art of love.
«Love tries to understand, convince, vivify. For this reason, the one he loves is constantly transformed. He captures more, observes more, he is more productive, he is more himself. "1
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to Erich Fromm: biography, theory and books, we recommend that you enter our category of Biographies.
References
- Fromm, E. (1956). The Art of Loving. Harper & Brothers: New York
Bibliography
- Cañal, J. (2012). Technical and etiological aspects in the psychoanalytic conception of Erich Fromm. Psychoanalysis, 3, 17.
- Manzo, G. (2014). The origins of Erich Fromm's Social Analytical Psychology in the early Frankfurt School. Perspectives in Psychology, 11, 25-33.
- Rivas, R. (2013). Erich fromm: bases for a paradoxical anthropology and a "negative" ethics. En-Keys to Thought, 14, 103-122.
- Silva, O. (1994). Erich Fromm's convictions.
