Showing results by author "Erich Fromm"

lf a man cannot stand freedom, he will probably turn fascist. This, in the fewest possible words, is the essential argument in this modem classic, Escape from Freedom. The author, Erich Fromm, is a distinguished psychologist, late of Berlin and Heidelberg, now of New York City.

The Sane Society is a continuation and extension of the brilliant psychiatric concepts Erich Fromm first formulated in Escape from Freedom; it is also, in many ways, an answer to Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents. Fromm examines man’s escape into over conformity and the danger of robotism in contemporary industrial society: Modern humanity has, he maintains, been alienated from the world of their own creation. Here Fromm offers a complete and systematic exploration of his “humanistic psychoanalysis.”

This classic work by psychologist and social philosopher Eric Fromm builds upon his previous popular book To Have or to Be? The Art of Being teaches us to avoid the tantalizing illusions of our consumer-driven world by learning to function as a whole person from a state of inner completeness or being. The transition from an identity of having to being creates a state of enlightened psychological and spiritual happiness.

A master of psychoanalysis and social philosophy explores Zen Buddhism. In 1957, social philosopher and psychoanalyst Erich Fromm invited Daisetz T. Suzuki, the most famous Zen Buddhist master in the Western world, to a seminar at his new home in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Their discussion was one of the highlights of Fromm’s life, and the paper Fromm presented (and later expanded into a book) was a watershed work. Fromm demonstrates his mastery of the philosophy and practice of Zen.

In Man for Himself, Erich Fromm examines the confusion of modern women and men who, because they lack faith in any principle by which life ought to be guided, become the helpless prey forces both within and without. From the broad, interdisciplinary perspective that marks Fromm's distinguished oeuvre, he shows that psychology cannot divorce itself from the problems of philosophy and ethics, and that human nature cannot be understood without understanding the values and moral conflicts that confront us all.

A brilliant meditation on mental health in the modern world; alienation and mental health; ways to overcome "the insane society"; a comprehensive analysis of prevailing concepts of mental health against Fromm's views on overcoming destructive narcissism and social determinants of mental health; and a look at humankind's alleged passivity in relation to dreams, child development, and psychology.

In this study, Fromm argues that man needs to analyze his unconscious thoughts, his dreams, and his conscious fantasies, as they reflect a universal and symbolic representation of himself.

Throughout his scientific work, Erich Fromm pursued the twin goal of uncovering the social unconscious of the individual as well as the unconscious of social entities. As Fromm wrote in 1936, "The problem within psychology and sociology is the dialectic intertwining of natural and historical factors. Freud has wrongly based psychology totally on natural factors."

As the title suggests, Fromm's is a wholeheartedly balanced view, inspired by great admiration for Freud's achievements but with a clear understanding of the preconceptions which blinkered his vision - notably those stemming from the bourgeois materialism of his society, his certainty of the inferiority of women and his inability to conceive of psychical phenomena for which physiological roots could not be demonstrated.

The Old Testament is one of the most carefully studied books in the world’s history. It is also one of the most misunderstood. This founding text of the world’s three largest religions is also, Erich Fromm argues, an impressive radical humanist text. He sees the stories of mankind’s transition from divided clans to united brotherhood as a tribute to the human power to overcome. Filled with hopeful symbolism, You Shall Be as Gods shows how the Old Testament and its tradition is an inspiring ode to human potential.

Fromm's follow-up to Escape from Freedom and The Art of Loving is a keen study of violence on a small scale leading to the specter of mass destruction.

First published in 1968, the year of international-student confrontation and revolution, this classic challenges listeners to choose which of two roads humankind ought to take: the one, leading to a completely mechanized society with the individual a helpless cog in a machine bent on mass destruction; or the second, being the path of humanism and hope.

The early 1960s were a time of existential unease across the world. The constant threat of a nuclear bomb - and of mutually assured destruction - led to a palpable sense that nuclear holocaust could occur any day. It was in this Cold War environment that social psychologist Erich Fromm wrote May Man Prevail?