The clinical Erich Fromm : personal accounts and papers on therapeutic technique

194 Pages·2009·2.99 MB·English

by  Fromm

The Clinical Erich Fromm
Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies
9
Editor Associate Editors
Jon Mills Roger Frie
Gerald J. Gargiulo
Editorial Advisory Board
Neil Altman Otto F. Kernberg
Howard Bacal Robert Langs
Alan Bass Joseph Lichtenberg
John Beebe Nancy McWilliams
Martin Bergmann Jean Baker Miller
Christopher Bollas Thomas Ogden
Mark Bracher Owen Renik
Marcia Cavell Joseph Reppen
Nancy J. Chodorow William J. Richardson
Walter A. Davis Peter L. Rudnytsky
Peter Dews Martin A. Schulman
Muriel Dimen David Livingstone Smith
Michael Eigen Donnel Stern
Irene Fast Frank Summers
Bruce Fink M. Guy Thompson
Peter Fonagy Wilfried Ver Eecke
Leo Goldberger Robert S. Wallerstein
James Grotstein Otto Weininger
Keith Haartman Brent Willock
Robert Maxwell Young
Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies (CPS) is an international scholarly
book series devoted to all aspects of psychoanalytic inquiry in theoretical,
philosophical, applied, and clinical psychoanalysis. Its aims are broadly
academic, interdisciplinary, and pluralistic, emphasizing secularism and
tolerance across the psychoanalytic domain. CPS aims to promote open and
inclusive dialogue among the humanities and the social-behavioral sciences
including such disciplines as philosophy, anthropology, history, literature,
religion, cultural studies, sociology, feminism, gender studies, political thought,
moral psychology, art, drama, and film, biography, law, economics, biology, and
cognitive-neuroscience.
The Clinical Erich Fromm
Personal Accounts and
Papers on Therapeutic Technique
Edited by
Rainer Funk
Amsterdam - New York, NY 2009
Cover photo: © DVA
Cover Design: Studio Pollmann
The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO
9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents -
Requirements for permanence”.
ISBN: 978-90-420-2573-8
© Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2009
Printed in the Netherlands
Contents

Roger Frie: Foreword vii

Rainer Funk: Introduction 1

PART I: ERICH FROMM ON THERAPEUTIC PRACTICE

Erich Fromm: Being Centrally Related to the Patient 7
Erich Fromm: Factors Leading to Patient’s Change
in Analytic Treatment 39

PART II: RELATIONSHIP AS DIRECT MEETING

Rainer Funk: Direct Meeting 59
Marianne Horney Eckardt: From Couch to Chair 71
David E. Schecter: Awakening the Patient 73
Dale H. Ortmeyer: Conveying Hope to the Patient 79
Harold B. Davis: Directness in Therapy 85

PART III: ERICH FROMM’S THERAPEUTIC PRACTICE
IN THE MIRROR OF SUPERVISION

Ruth M. Lesser: “There Is Nothing Polite in Anybody’s
Unconscious” 91
Robert U. Akeret: “What Have You Learned about
Yourself from Your Patient?” 101
George D. Goldman: “What Is this Patient Really After?” 105
Arthur H. Feiner: “Now, Look here...” 117

PART IV: REMINISCENCES OF ERICH FROMM—
PSYCHOANALYST AND PERSON

Anna Gourevitch: Elation and Fortification 125
Ralph M. Crowley: Psychoanalysis: An Adventure
in Learning to Think Critically 127
Edward S. Tauber: Words are Ways 131
Jay S. Kwawer: His Main Interest: The Human Passions 135
Bernard Landis: When You Hear the Word,
the Reality Is Lost 137
vi
Michael Maccoby: Fromm Didn’t Want to Be a Frommian 141
Jorge Silva García: His Way to Clarity and Humaneness 145
Salvador Millán and Sonia Gojman de Millán: His Deeply
Inspirational Presence and Thoughtfulness 153
Gérard D. Khoury: A Crucial Encounter 161
Leonard C. Feldstein: Fromm’s Genius Was
in His Actual Presence 169

References 171

About the Contributors 177

Acknowledgements 181

Erich Fromm’s Writings on Psychoanalytic “Technique” 183
Foreword

Roger Frie

As a result of the growing technocratic culture of contemporary psycho-
therapy, it is becoming increasingly difficult to preserve a space for critical
reflection and the uniqueness of the therapeutic encounter. A number of
powerful factors—pressures from insurance companies, the pervasive
drive towards medication, and a general indifference to the complexity of
psychological change and development—are transforming how psycho-
therapy is practiced. Whereas psychoanalysis once provided a lens through
which social and political forces in human experience could be critically
examined, contemporary psychotherapy is often conceptualized a purely
technical undertaking. But psychotherapy and psychoanalysis are more
than learned techniques; they are always grounded specific ideas and theo-
ries about the nature of human experience.
Erich Fromm’s writings remind us that the practice of psychother-
apy and psychoanalysis always takes place within sociopolitical and cul-
tural contexts, and that these contexts inevitably determine the objectives
and the manner in which any analysis is undertaken. As Fromm states in
Man for Himself (1947a), “Psychology cannot be divorced from philoso-
phy and ethics nor from sociology and economics” (p. ix). At the heart of
Fromm’s work is a unique interdisciplinary outlook that bridges sociology,
philosophy, economics, psychology and psychoanalysis. While Fromm is
identified with each discipline, he is not defined by any one of them indi-
vidually. Indeed, as a theorist, writer and public intellectual, Fromm rejects
doctrinaire outlooks and rigid definitions. And as a practicing psychoana-
lyst, Fromm similarly eschews the codification of clinical technique and
rejects prescriptive ideas about how to practice.
Fromm developed his clinical approach in response to the restric-
tions imposed by classical psychoanalytic technique, the reigning thera-
peutic paradigm of the time. In contrast to Freud and classical psycho-
analysis, for whom technique is grounded in a positivist and deterministic
theory of drives, Fromm celebrates the uniqueness of the “direct encoun-
ter” with the patient. Fromm seeks to remain true to the patient’s lived ex-
perience, without imposing a restrictive technique or universalized theory
on the vitality of interpersonal interaction. Yet much less is known about
Fromm as a clinician and psychoanalyst, than as a writer. Fromm’s psy-
choanalytic practice was immensely important to the formulation of the
ideas for which he is so widely recognized. Indeed, what is often over-
viii
looked is the fact that Fromm was first and foremost a clinician, and main-
tained an active practice for forty-five years.
Fromm’s psychoanalytic education and clinical trajectory speaks
for itself. Fromm completed his doctorate in sociology from Heidelberg in
1922 and began his psychoanalytic training several years later. Fromm was
introduced to psychoanalysis by Frieda Reichmann, his colleague and fu-
ture wife, and subsequently trained with Wilhelm Wittenberg in Munich,
and Karl Landauer in Frankfurt. Fromm completed his psychoanalytic
training with Hanns Sachs and Theodor Reik, graduating from the Berlin
Institute. In 1929, Fromm became one of the founders of the Frankfurt
Psychoanalytic Institute. That same year, Max Horkheimer’s invited
Fromm to join the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research—later known as
the “Frankfurt School”—where he was appointed the director of social
psychology. Following the rise of National Socialism in 1933, Fromm left
Germany, finding his way to New York, where he eventually joined the
other émigré members of the Frankfurt School.
Although Fromm was trained in classical psychoanalytic theory
and technique, his studies in social psychology led him to conclude that the
individual psyche is inherently social in nature. In the Appendix of his first
major publication, Escape from Freedom, Fromm (1941a) describes the in-
trinsic relation of the individual and society:

The fundamental approach to human personality is the under-
standing of man’s [sic] relation to the world, to others, to na-
ture, and to himself. We believe that man [sic] is primarily a so-
cial being, and not, as Freud assumes, primarily self-sufficient
and only secondarily in need of others in order to satisfy his in-
stinctual needs. In this sense, we believe that individual psy-
chology is fundamentally social psychology, or in Sullivan’s
terms, the psychology of interpersonal relationships. (p. 290).

Fromm’s rejection of psychoanalytic drive theory spelled the end of his as-
sociation with Freudian psychoanalysis and the work of the Frankfurt
School. This led first to a professional association with Karen Horney, and
subsequently with the interpersonal psychoanalysts, Harry Stack Sullivan
and Clara Thompson. Together with his ex-wife, Frieda Fromm-
Reichmann, Fromm, Sullivan and Thompson founded the William Alanson
White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Psychology in 1946.
With its focus on understanding the social contexts of human experience,
the White Institute became the home of interpersonal theory and practice.
For the next years, Fromm oversaw the new institute’s faculty and training
committee. In 1950, as a result of his wife’s health, Fromm moved to Mex-
ico, where he founded the Mexican Institute of Psychoanalysis. Over the
next two decades Fromm continued to teach and supervise at the White In-
ix
stitute and at a variety of American universities, dividing his time between
Mexico and the United States.
As a member of “loyal opposition” within the growing field of
psychoanalysis, the White Institute initially had relatively little impact on
the psychoanalytic mainstream. Indeed, outside of the White Institute,
Fromm’s main influence was not on psychoanalytic clinicians in the first
instance, but on the educated public and on academics interested in apply-
ing his analytic perspective to the study of social, cultural, and political
trends and processes. However, within the White Institute, there were
many psychoanalytic candidates and colleagues who had the opportunity
to work with Fromm and experience first-hand his unique and important
interpersonal approach to therapeutic work.
Rainer Funk’s edited book provides an immensely valuable ser-
vice because it presents Fromm’s clinical ideas and clinical style through
the voice of his supervisees, students, colleagues, and friends. Funk is ide-
ally situated to undertake this study: he has published extensively on
Fromm, is the executor of Fromm’s literary estate, and an executive mem-
ber of the International Erich Fromm Society. His book provides a timely
and important addition to our understanding of Fromm. It fills a gap in the
secondary literature on Fromm by demonstrating the way in which Fromm
was an especially skillful and talented clinician, in addition to being a
writer of great renown.
By offering first-hand accounts of their work with Fromm, the
contributors help readers to grasp how the “clinical Erich Fromm” worked
in his psychoanalytic practice and how he conceptualized clinical case ma-
terial. In the process, this book deepens our appreciation of Fromm as a
thinker, clinician and a human being. Most importantly, perhaps, it reveals
how Fromm’s therapeutic approach, which emphasizes direct encounter
with the patient and values the contextualization of experience, remains di-
rectly relevant for the changing culture of contemporary psychotherapy.
Although I am of a younger generation than the contributors to
this book, Fromm’s writings had a strong influence on me (Frie 2003). I
chose to undertake my analytic training at the White Institute in large part
because of Fromm and the tradition he represents. As a faculty member of
the White Institute, Fromm’s work continues to be important to my clinical
work and my teaching. However, analytic training in North America today
is more practice-focused and less intellectually oriented than it was when
Fromm taught at the White Institute. In general, students and analysts tend
to learn from direct clinical reading. Unfortunately this also means that
Fromm’s writings are not as widely read as they once were. For therapists
and analysts who wish to know Fromm not only as a writer, but also as a
practicing clinician, this book provides an important step towards reaching
that goal.