The coming triumph of the psychosocial perspective: lessons from the rise, fall and revival of Erich Fromm
Search for other papers by Neil McLaughlin in
Current site
Google Scholar
This article presents the story of the rise, fall and revival of Erich Fromm, arguably the most important psychosocial thinker of the 20th century. Fromm was a major intellectual figure in the 1940s, 1940s and 1950s in a period of time when psychosocial work was growing in influence. Work that continues in that tradition is outlined and the implications this story holds for the psychosocial school of thought is spelled out through given events in the world today (Trumpism and right wing nationalism in particular) that once again create space for psychosocial ideas. The opportunities and the challenges faced today by the psychosocial perspective are discussed in light of the lessons that can be learned by looking at the earlier case of the rise and fall of Erich Fromm and the current global revival of interest in his theories. I conclude by offering some thoughts on how elements of sectarianism have sometimes plagued the psychosocial perspective and how this can be avoided in the coming years as we look forward to the coming triumph of depth psychological perspectives in the social sciences.
-
Anderson, K. (2015) Fromm, Marx and Humanism, in R. Funk and N. McLaughlin (eds) Toward a human science: The relevance of Erich Fromm for today, Giessen, Germany: Psychosozial-Verlag.
-
Bonss, W. (1984) Introduction in Erich Fromm, The working class in Weimar Germany, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
-
Brunner, J. (1994) Looking into the hearts of the workers, or: how Erich Fromm turned critical theory into empirical research, Political Psychology, 15(4): 631–54. doi:
-
Buechler, S. (2017) Choosing life: Fromm’s clinical values, The Psychoanalytic Review, 104(4): 451–67. doi:
-
Burston, D. (1991) The legacy of Erich Fromm, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
-
Cavalletto, G. and Silver, C. (2014) Opening/closing the sociological mind to psychoanalysis, in L. Chancer and J. Andrews (eds) The unhappy divorce of sociology and psychoanalysis, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 17–52.
-
Chancer, L.S. (1992) Sadomasochism in everyday life: The dynamics of power and powerlessness, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
-
Chancer, L.S. (2017) Sadomasochism or the art of loving: Fromm and feminist theory, The Psychoanalytic Review, 104(4): 469–84. doi:
-
Chancer, L. and Andrews, J. (eds) (2014) The unhappy divorce of sociology and psychoanalysis, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 53–76.
-
Cortina, M. (2015) The greatness and limitations of Erich Fromm’s humanism, Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 51(3): 388–422. doi:
-
Coser, L.A. (1965) Men of ideas, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
-
Durkin, K. (2014) The radical humanism of Erich Fromm, New York, NY: Palgrave.
-
Fine, G.A. (1993) The sad demise, mysterious disappearance, and glorious triumph of symbolic interactionism, Annual Review of Sociology, 19(1): 61–87. doi:
-
Frickel, S. and Gross, N. (2005) A general theory of scientific/intellectual movements, American Sociological Review, 70(2): 204–32. doi:
-
Friedman, L.J. with Schreiber, A.M. (2013) The lives of Erich Fromm: Love’s prophet, New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
-
Fromm, E. ([1941] 1969) Escape from freedom, New York, NY: Holt, Reinhart and Winston.
-
Fromm, E. (1947) Man for himself: An inquiry into the psychology of ethics, New York, NY: Rinehart.
-
Fromm, E. (1950) Psychoanalysis and religion, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
-
Fromm, E. (1955a) The sane society, New York, NY: Holt, Reinhart and Winston.
-
Fromm, E. (1956) The art of loving, New York, NY: Harper & Row.
-
Fromm, E. (1961) Marx’s concept of man, New York, NY: Continuum.
-
Fromm, E. (1962) Beyond the chains of illusions: My encounter with Marx and Freud, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
-
Fromm, E. (1973) The anatomy of human destructiveness, New York, NY: Holt, Reinhart and Winston.
-
Fromm, E. and Maccoby, M. (1970) Social character in a Mexican village: A socio-psychoanalytic study, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
-
Funk, R. (1982) Erich Fromm: The courage to be human, New York, NY: Continuum.
-
Greenberg, J. and Mitchell, S. (1983) Object relations in psychoanalytic theory, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
-
Hetherington, M.J. and Weiler, J.D. (2009) Authoritarianism and polarization in American politics, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
-
Hochschild, A. (2016) Strangers in their own land: Anger and mourning on the American right, New York, NY: The New Press.
-
Kellner, D. (2016) Donald Trump as authoritarian populist: a Frommian analysis, Logos, 15: 2–3, http://logosjournal.com/2016/kellner-2/.
-
Maccoby, M. (1995) The two voices of Erich Fromm: prophet and analyst, Society, 32(5): 72–82. doi:
-
Maccoby, M. (2003) The productive narcissist: The promise and peril of visionary leadership, New York, NY: Broadway Books.
-
Maccoby, M. (2015) Why people are drawn to narcissists like Donald Trump, Harvard Business Review, 26 August.
-
McLaughlin, N. (1998a) Why do schools of thought fail? Neo‐Freudianism as a case study in the sociology of knowledge, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 34(2): 113–34. doi:
-
McLaughlin, N. (1998b) How to Become a forgotten intellectual: intellectual movements and the rise and fall of Erich Fromm, Sociological Forum, 13: 215–46. doi:
-
McLaughlin, N. (1999) Origin myths in the social sciences: Fromm, the Frankfurt School and the emergence of critical theory, Canadian Journal of Sociology, 24(1): 109–39. doi:
-
McLaughlin, N. (2001a) Critical theory meets America: Riesman, Fromm, and the Lonely Crowd, American Sociologist, 2(1): 5–26.
-
McLaughlin, N. (2001b) Optimal marginality: innovation and orthodoxy in Fromm’s revision of psychoanalysis, The Sociological Quarterly, 42(2): 271–88. doi:
-
McLaughlin, N. (2008) Collaborative circles and their discontents: revisiting creativity and conflict in the Frankfurt School of critical theory, Sociologica, 2(2): 1–35.
-
McLaughlin, N. (2017a) When worlds collide: sociology, disciplinary nightmares, and Fromm’s revision of Freud, The Psychoanalytic Review, 104(4): 415–35. doi:
-
McLaughlin, N. (2017b) Movements, sects and letting go of symbolic interactionism, Canadian Journal of Sociology, 42(2): 203–10.
-
Peterson, J. (2018) Twelve rules for life, Toronto, Canada: Random House.
-
Rickert, J. (1986) The Fromm–Marcuse debate revisited, Theory and Society, 15(3): 181–214. doi:
-
Riesman, D. (1950) The lonely crowd: A study of the changing American character, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
-
Silver, C.B. (2014) Paranoid and institutional responses to psychoanalysis among early sociologists: a socio-psychoanalytic interpretation, in L. Chancer and J. Andrews (eds) The unhappy divorce of sociology and psychoanalysis, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 53–76.
Search for other papers by Neil McLaughlin in
Current site
Google Scholar
| May 2022 onwards | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 2218 | 1096 | 22 |
| Full Text Views | 40 | 8 | 0 |
| PDF Downloads | 56 | 14 | 0 |
Institutional librarians can find more information about free trials here
We are a leading social science publisher
committed to making a difference.
Bristol University Press and
Policy Press
bristoluniversitypress.co.uk