Erich Fromm
born March 23, 1900, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
died March 18, 1980, Muralto, Switzerland
German-born American psychoanalyst and social philosopher who
explored the interaction between psychology and society. By
applying psychoanalytic principles to the remedy of cultural
ills, Fromm believed, mankind could develop a psychologically
balanced “sane society.”
After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg
in 1922, Fromm trained in psychoanalysis at the University of
Munich and at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute. He began
practicing psychoanalysis as a disciple of Sigmund Freud but
soon took issue with Freud’s preoccupation with unconscious
drives and consequent neglect of the role of societal factors in
human psychology. For Fromm an individual’s personality was the
product of culture as well as biology. He had already attained a
distinguished reputation as a psychoanalyst when he left Nazi
Germany in 1933 for the United States. There he came into
conflict with orthodox Freudian psychoanalytic circles. From
1934 to 1941 Fromm was on the faculty of Columbia University in
New York City, where his views became increasingly
controversial. In 1941 he joined the faculty at Bennington
College in Vermont, and in 1951 he was appointed professor of
psychoanalysis at the National Autonomous University of Mexico,
Mexico City. From 1957 to 1961 he held a concurrent
professorship at Michigan State University, and he returned to
New York City in 1962 as professor of psychiatry at New York
University.
In several books and essays, Fromm presented the view that an
understanding of basic human needs is essential to the
understanding of society and mankind itself. Fromm argued that
social systems make it difficult or impossible to satisfy the
different needs at one time, thus creating both individual
psychological and wider societal conflicts.
In Fromm’s first major work, Escape from Freedom (1941), he
charted the growth of freedom and self-awareness from the Middle
Ages to modern times and, using psychoanalytic techniques,
analyzed the tendency, brought on by modernization, to take
refuge from contemporary insecurities by turning to totalitarian
movements such as Nazism. In The Sane Society (1955), Fromm
presented his argument that modern man has become alienated and
estranged from himself within consumer-oriented industrial
society. Known also for his popular works on human nature,
ethics, and love, Fromm additionally wrote books of criticism
and analysis of Freudian and Marxist thought, psychoanalysis,
and religion. Among his other books are Man for Himself (1947),
Psychoanalysis and Religion (1950), The Art of Loving (1956),
May Man Prevail? (1961, with D.T. Suzuki and R. De Martino),
Beyond the Chains of Illusion (1962), The Revolution of Hope
(1968), and The Crisis of Psychoanalysis (1970).
