Erich Fromm Biography, Theory and Books

Erich Fromm was one of the main pioneers to renew the conception of psychoanalysis, once he settled in Europe. Fromm opposed the reductionist vision of psychoanalysis that detailed that the human being is conditioned by a set of unconscious forces that cannot be controlled by our conscious will. Faced with this opposition, the humanistic psychoanalysis. From then on, Erich Fromm developed his theories focused on psychoanalysis and criticism of the western world. It came to publish more than thirty books and is considered, today, one of the most valued psychologists in psychology. If you are interested to know who it was Erich Fromm: biography, theory and books, Continue reading this Psychology-online article.

1. Erich Fromm biography
2. Erich Fromm theory
3. Erich Fromm books
4. Erich Fromm's art of love

Erich Fromm biography

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 exercising as rabbis. The only son of Neftalí fromm and his mother Rosa Krause, grew up feeling identified in the religion that surrounded him, wanting to follow the same addresses as his family's ancestors, recounting himself: “I educated in a religious Jewish family, and the pages of the Old Testament moved me and stimulated more than anything else to which I was exposed."

However, The arrival of World War I produced a change in mentality From Erich Fromm, verifying that the people he had associated as people with a strong pacifist spirit, climbed into the car of the rulers' violence, in addition to seeing nearby cousins ​​and uncles. From that time, its main objective was focused on understanding how government forces were able to influence a multitude of the population, which moves peacefully, to enter a struggle that would hardly bring benefits to the population.

After war, Erich fromm triggered a critical attitude towards everything, without giving anything known. This new way of seeing the world was what He approached Freud's ideas, To understand individual mechanisms, and Marx, to understand social. His thinking ended up radically molding to study law at the University of Frankfurt and Sociology in Heidelberg later.

However, he never stopped having contact with the Jewish people. His doctoral thesis in 1922 focused on Jewish law, which from met.

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 concluded in Berlin, at the Berlin Institute, where later opened his first office And he definitely abandoned his beliefs of Orthodox religion, to become atheism. Then, at the Frankfurt Social Research Institute, he approached Marxist ideas.

In 1931, fell sick with tuberculosis And he traveled to Davos to improve, where he lived a year. At that time, Nazism was booming to get to power and the Tube Institute to emigrate to Geneva until 1934 and, later, to the University of Columbia in New York. In the big city, he had the opportunity to have a lot of contact with the great thinkers, refugees also United States. With this, in 1943 he obtained the recognition of being one of the founding members of the New York subsidiary of the Washington Psychiatry School.

Then, he married Henney Gurland again, with which he would move in 1950 to Mexico. However, she died two years later, while he taught at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). In addition, he was claimed by many of the great universities to give talks and expose his books. In 1953, he married Annis Glove again.

In the midst of the Vietnam War, Fromm returned to postulate new preferences and ideals, fully involving pacifist movements. During this time, he wrote his great best seller "The art of love" (1956).

Erich He got a chair at Michigan State University, being appointed later as a professor at the University of New York in 1962. Next, in 1965, he retired from his professional practice, even so, he continued to teach in many of the great universities and institutes.

Erich Fromm wanted to spend his last years in Switzerland, in Muralto, where In 1980 he died of a heart attack.

Erich Fromm theory

The factor that triggered a great transcendence in the investigations of Erich Fromm was that unlike his psychoanalyst companions, He began from sociology and not from medicine or psychiatry. It was following this perspective, on which Fromm could observe the human being in great complexity, as an integral whole. From this conception of the person as a whole, he could expose the idea that not everything responds to biology, to organic pathology, since the environment and vital circumstances and above all, the society in which the person is , they are conditioning factors of the human being and it is not only their organic condition.

In order to understand Erich Fromm's theory, we must know that this It was influenced by Freud and Marx's ideas. Freud based his theory on unconscious drives that conditioned our conscious wills, as well as our biological impulses. 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 was how from The freedom of man As a central point of his theory, seeking that man transcend the determinisms of his own biology and society. Faced with this, from the sociocultural point of view, Fromm's maximum objective was not to achieve social adjustment or adaptation, but the integrity of the individual itself. On the other hand, from the biological point of view, he emphasized that the origin of psychic problems is not supported solely on organic condition. Since they interfere with a set of environmental variables that also condition the origin of psychic problems, such as interpersonal relationships, culture, models of coping with problems, ... based on these ideas Erich fromm established a personality theory.

In summary, in the face of these two systems established by two great thinkers, which supported a deterministic theory, Erich fromm encouraged society to transcend the conditions attributed to them and to seek freedom and their own reason for being. Something that is reflected in the convictions of Erich fromm.

Erich Fromm books

In addition to being one of the most influential thinkers of our times, Erich Fromm was a great writer, who wrote dozens of books among them, some examples that we can find:

• The escape of freedom (1941)
• Man by himself (1947)
• Art of Amar (1956)
• Healthy Society (1955)
• The anatomy of human destructiveness (1973)
• The heart of man (1964)
• The fear of freedom (1941)
• ¿Man can survive? (1961)
• And you will be like gods (1966)

Erich Fromm's art of love

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 be able to reflect on one of the most important issues of our reason for being, love. The book helps the reader to question about some aspects of love which may seem simple at the first instance, such as: ¿What does love mean? either ¿How we give off from ourselves to experience this feeling? In addition, it manifests the different forms of the expression of love, such as fraternal, subsidiary, parental, oneself, ... these forms being a maturity feature and not only a personal relationship.

The art of love of Erich Fromm, also teaches us that love is not mechanical or passenger, it is an art that is obtained thanks to its learning. With this, it shows us that to learn to love, the person must act as they would do if they wanted to learn any art discipline, such as music, painting, medicine ... Finally, it emphasizes that we should not live looking for success, power or money, but to learn and cultivate the art of loving.

«Love tries to understand, convince, vivify. For this reason, the one who loves constantly transforms. Captures more, observe more, it is more productive, it is more himself."¹

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1. Fromm, e. (1956). The Art of Loving. Harper & Brothers: New York