Life of a Philosopher
Erich Fromm came from a family of Orthodox Jews. He was born in Frankfurt am Main, where he first attended school. He attended a national Jewish school, which, however, taught all the subjects of the standard school curriculum in addition to traditional religious disciplines. This allowed him, after graduating from school, to enter the University of Heidelberg, where he studied philosophy, psychology and sociology. Subsequently, Erich Fromm studied at other universities.
At the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute, Erich Fromm, among other things, met Karen Horney, an American psychologist who later helped him move to the USA and become a professor there.
In 1925, he completed his basic training and opened a private practice as a psychoanalyst. He did this for more than thirty years; his private practice helped him collect a lot of factual material for his own research.
When Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, Erich Fromm moved first to Switzerland and then to the USA. There he taught at Columbia University and also began writing works in English.
Erich Fromm found his wife “among his own”: she was Frida Reichman, the sister of the wife of a friend and fellow psychologist, Israeli writer Shmul Agnon.
Biography
Erich Fromm is an American psychoanalyst with German roots who developed the concept of humanistic psychoanalysis. A prominent representative of the Frankfurt School, one of the founders of neo-Freudianism and Freudo-Marxism.
Portraits of Erich Fromm
Many books by the personality psychology theorist, written in living language, became bestsellers: “Escape from Freedom”, “Man for Himself”, “To Have or to Be”, “The Art of Loving”.
The main theme of the work of Erich Fromm, who devoted almost his entire life to the study of the subconscious, was the contradictions of human existence in the world.
Philosophy of a psychoanalyst
Erich Fromm considered himself a faithful follower of the ideas of Sigmund Freud. However, in his opinion, classical Freudianism should have been developed further, since it revealed many secrets of the essence of man and his psyche, but did not answer questions about what a person should be and how he should act. With the help of Freud's theory, Erich Fromm tried to explore the social and political life of people.
Fromm argued that human fears, drives, and desires are not products of a person’s internal development, but consequences of the influence of culture. In his opinion, man is initially not characterized by the desire to command and obey, friendliness and hostility, creativity and destructiveness, pride, craving for entertainment, love of sensual pleasures or fear of them and other manifestations of the psyche; All this, Fromm believed, are reactions to certain living conditions.
The main theme of Erich Fromm's research is, so to speak, the problem of the alienation of the individual from society. Fromm combined Freudianism with Marxism and tried to give an in-depth characterization and criticism of man in the era of capitalism.
The human desire for individuality under capitalism leads to feelings of loneliness and helplessness. This is where many of the psychological problems of people lie; This, as Fromm believed, is even the cause of many neuroses. Their essence is the struggle between internal dependence and the desire for freedom.
Erich Fromm shares two “consciences”. One is external, formed by externally imposed attitudes: education, state propaganda, religious teaching, etc. The second is internal, which is the inner voice of the person himself, regardless of external circumstances. A person’s task is to follow precisely the “inner conscience”, to realize one’s own potential, and not to adapt to certain external standards; only then will a person gain true freedom and happiness.
This is the humanistic psychoanalysis proposed by the psychologist. If most of the then existing methods of psychotherapy were based on the patient’s adaptation to the existing reality, economic and social system and the dominant culture, then the humanistic direction should have the goal of revealing the individual’s own capabilities, realizing his own potential. The psychotherapist should therefore not be an “adjustment coach,” but literally a “healer of the soul.”
At the same time, “healing” should involve a change in a person’s behavior: he should strive not so much to possess something, but to give. “To be” means to give, to create, and not to take. Erich Fromm gives a symbolic example: A blue glass appears blue to us because it transmits blue rays through itself and absorbs all the others; therefore we call him “blue” not on the basis of what he “takes”, but on the basis of what he gives.
Fromm also revised Freud's idea of the Oedipus complex. This is the common name for a child’s unconscious sexual attraction to a parent of the opposite sex and ambivalent feelings towards a parent of the same sex.
Erich Fromm believed that Freud misunderstood the meaning of the ancient legend of King Oedipus. In his opinion, the true meaning of the Oedipus complex lies not in the child’s sexual attraction to his parents, but in his reaction to the pressure of parental authority.
Erich Fromm also disagreed with the Freudian understanding of religion. Freud was a convinced atheist and interpreted religion as a system of illusions. Fromm believes that the basis of religion is the desire of each person to systematize all his experience, bring it to a certain order and create a certain idealistic construct from it. Apparently, the fact is that Fromm initially grew up in an orthodox religious family and received a religious upbringing.
On the other hand, Fromm criticizes modern traditional faiths because, in his opinion, they contribute not to the disclosure of a person’s inner potential, but to its elimination. Instead of teaching believers what to do and how best to do it, modern religions only indicate what cannot be done and establish such a huge number of prohibitions that they simply deprive a person of freedom.
Fromm divides existing religions into authoritarian and humanistic. In the first, a person is forced to believe that his life and the whole world around him are controlled by certain “higher powers,” and he himself is absolutely helpless in front of them. In such religions, obedience is considered a virtue, and the desire to think and act independently is called a terrible sin. The more God is exalted, the less respect a person receives. Such religions, among other things, accustom the believer to hypocrisy, the desire to hide their true thoughts and feelings and suppress them within themselves.
On the contrary, humanistic religions help a person realize his inner potential and find harmony with the outside world. In such religions the concept of “god” may exist, but its meaning is not at all the same as in authoritarian cults. Fromm considers Buddhism, the teachings of Socrates, the cult of Reason in the Age of Enlightenment, etc. to be examples of humanistic religions.
In the light of his teaching, Erich Fromm examines the phenomenon of love. He said that love in the modern world has become a thing, whereas in fact it is a process, an act, an action. In this regard, there is true love - “love according to the principle of being” and unreal love, that is, “love according to the principle of possession”.
Erich Fromm and the systemic crises of Western society
To understand Erich Fromm's theory of humanistic psychoanalysis, it is necessary to get to know him as a person, to understand his roots, the situation in which he grew up, and the evolving world that constitutes his most immediate reality. This will shed light on what guided and inspired his theories.
When you read his autobiography, Beyond the Chains of Illusion, and focus on his childhood and youth, it is easy to see that these were not exactly happy times for him. His father was an aggressive businessman, his mother suffered from chronic depression, and he was raised according to the noticeably strict norms of Orthodox Judaism. During this time, he experienced two defining moments.
The first was the suicide of a 25-year-old woman with whom he had been in love as a child. She was an artist who was very close to her only family member: her father. He died suddenly and a few days later she committed suicide. Her suicide made Fromm think about what makes people go to such extremes.
The second defining moment was the outbreak of the First World War, in which the shadow of nationalism, the radicalization of the masses and messages of hatred entered his life.
The world began to fall apart, and the cracks not only created insurmountable distances between various powers, but also initiated a period of systemic crisis throughout Western society. All psychological, philosophical and social theories up to this point had to be reformulated in search of answers and explanations in the midst of such chaos.
Death
Towards the end of the 1960s, Erich Fromm was diagnosed with his first heart attack. In the mid-1970s, the scientist moved to the Swiss commune of Muralto, where he completed work on the book “To Have and to Be.” In 1977 and 1978, Fromm had his second and third heart attacks.
Erich Fromm in recent years
The famous psychoanalyst's heart stopped in 1980. Erich Fromm did not live 5 days before his 80th birthday.
Bibliography
- 1922 – “The Jewish Law. Toward the sociology of Diaspora Jewry"
- 1941 – “Flight from Freedom”
- 1947 – “A Man for Himself”
- 1949 – “Man and Woman”
- 1950 – “Psychoanalysis and Religion”
- 1951 – “Forgotten language. Introduction to the science of understanding dreams, fairy tales and myths"
- 1955 – “Healthy Society”
- 1956 – “The Art of Loving”
- 1962 – “Beyond the illusions that enslave us. How I Encountered Marx and Freud"
- 1968 – “Human Nature”
- 1970 – “The Crisis of Psychoanalysis”
- 1973 – “The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness”
- 1976 – “To Have or To Be”
- 1979 – “The Greatness and Limitations of Freud’s Theory”
- 1981 – “On Disobedience and Other Essays”
Personal life
Erich Fromm explained his love for older women as a lack of maternal warmth in childhood. The first wife of the 26-year-old scientist was his 10-year-older colleague Frieda Reichmann, from whom the young scientist took a lecture course in psychoanalysis.
Frieda Reichmann, first wife of Erich Fromm
Fromm lived with Frida for only 4 years, but the woman influenced the professional development of her husband. After the separation, they remained friends, and officially divorced in 1940, when Erich met Karen Horney.
Karen Horney, common-law wife of Erich Fromm
The famous feminist and psychoanalyst Horney often entered into romantic relationships with colleagues, invariably being disappointed in her chosen ones. Sometimes Karen had several lovers at the same time, each of them complementing the missing qualities of the others.
Karen and Erich met in Berlin. The romance broke out in America, where they immigrated. Horney taught Fromm the techniques of psychoanalysis, and he taught her the basics of sociology. The romance did not result in marriage, but the scientists complemented each other’s knowledge and influenced further professional growth.
Henny Gurland, second wife of Erich Fromm
Fromm officially married for the second time at the age of 40. His wife was 10 years older Henny Gurland, a photographer and journalist. Henny had a serious back problem. To alleviate his wife’s suffering, Fromm, on the advice of doctors, moved to Mexico City. The death of his beloved in 1952 shocked the scientist. While living with Gurland, the German psychoanalyst became interested in mysticism and Zen Buddhism.
Erich was able to cope with depression by meeting Annis Freeman. She became Fromm's only woman who was younger than him.
The couple lived together for 27 years, until the scientist’s death. American Annis inspired her husband to write the scientific bestseller “The Art of Loving.”
