Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm

Paper Summary:

This paper relates that psychoanalyst Erich Fromm was born in 1900 in German, in 1933 came to the United States, became a citizen and held various positions in U. S. psychoanalytical institutions and universities. The author points out that Fromm's theory of personality is a unique blend of Sigmund Freud, Fromm's mentor, who postulated that the character was determined by biology and Karl Marx, who believed people as determined by their society, especially by their economic systems. The paper relates that Fromm introduced the notion of what he called humanity's essential freedom, which allowed people to transcend the determinisms that Freud and Marx attributed to human family and human economic life as inevitable.

From the Paper:

"In contrast, Fromm stated that human beings have, in the title of his famous 1947 text, "Escape from Freedom", attempted to use authoritarian forms of political and religious control, destructiveness, and social conformity to choose to limit their freedom. But humans can also attempt to free themselves from these controls, as these controls are self-imposed. Structures of the family, like excessively symbiotic families or withdrawing families may contribute to ways humans chose to limit their freedom, and by actively choosing such political, familial, and social systems, and remaining within these structures, humans may accept limitations-or throw off such influences by recognizing them and reorganizing their familial and political lives, and thus change their societies and personalities."

More papers on Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm:

• Essay # 62225 : "Erich Fromm"
• Analytical Essay # 58737 : "Bernard of Clairvaux and Erich Fromm"
• Persuasive Essay # 124867 : "Erich Fromm's Theory of Disobedience"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: