@article{Philipson, author = {Philipson, Ilene}, title = {The Plague of Certitude: Why Fromm Matters Today}, series = {Psychoanalytic Inquiry, Routledge, Vol. 44 (No. 1, 2024), pp. 045-052.}, journal = {Psychoanalytic Inquiry, Routledge, Vol. 44 (No. 1, 2024), pp. 045-052.}, abstract = {Today, a plague of certitude is spreading within American psychoanalysis. This socially constructed virus is increasingly dominating our unmoderated list serves, appearing in our journals, and slowly seeping into our institutes. Having transcended the objectivism of traditional Freudian analysis, we seem to be revivifying its spirit. Rigorous claims to truth, superior knowledge, and contempt for those not in agreement abound. The life and work of psychoanalyst and sociologist Erich Fromm is offered as an antidote and model for resistance to this plague. He consistently objected to all forms of authoritarianism, from the Right and the Left. As a radical humanist he viewed us all as responsible selves, not mere vessels for instinctual drives or victims of unbearable circumstances. As Paul Roazan said about Fromm: >It still seems to me remarkable how he was willing to stand up for what he believed in. He should be a model of independence and autonomy for us all.<}, language = {en} } @article{Philipson, author = {Philipson, Ilene}, title = {From the lonely crowd to the cyber mob: Fromm on the social consequences of loneliness. Paper of the special issue on >Humanistic transformation and its implications for psychoanalytic theory and therapy<}, series = {International Forum of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 33 (No. 2, 2024), pp. xxx.}, journal = {International Forum of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 33 (No. 2, 2024), pp. xxx.}, abstract = {In 1950, sociologist David Riesman published a best-selling book entitled The lonely crowd: A study of the changing American character. Famously, he described the ascendant >other directed< person as being haunted by an inner loneliness. This paper seeks to explain the current phenomenon of the cyber mob, an online crowd of peers gathered together to intimidate and >cancel<" others, as a form of group behavior founded in profound aloneness and alienation brought about by neoliberal society. While the existence of online groups or mobs is overdetermined, the desire to belong, to feel a part of something larger than oneself, and to escape a haunting inner loneliness may be the twenty-first-century corollary of what Reisman described 73 years ago. With the rise of authoritarianism throughout the world, climate change, massive inequality, pandemic, and the breakdown of moral authority, people on both the Left and the Right cling to cyber mobs to escape aloneness, discharge fear and rage, and acquire affirmation and acceptance through >likes< and >retweets.< While they seem to provide bonding and empowerment, what cyber mobs offer in truth is greater ferocious tribalism and the further undoing of social bonds, fellow feeling, and the remnants of civil society.}, language = {en} } @article{Philipson, author = {Philipson, Ilene}, title = {The Last Public Psychoanalyst? Why Fromm Matters in the 21st Century}, series = {Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Vol. 14 (2017), pp. 52-74.}, journal = {Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Vol. 14 (2017), pp. 52-74.}, abstract = {Second only to Freud, Erich Fromm remains the most widely read psychoanalyst in history. He was, in this author's view, a public psychoanalyst, a man who wished to address what he believed were the most pressing issues of his day, who saw psychoanalysis as a tool to explicate and interrogate contemporary society in order to change it. This paper not only seeks to restore Fromm to his place as a forefather of the relational turn but also attempts to demonstrate how Fromm's enduring sense of hope, his radical humanism, and his call to acknowledge what unites us rather than separates us offer an implicit critique of the excesses of the politics}, language = {en} } @article{Philipson, author = {Philipson, Ilene}, title = {Erich Fromm: A challenge to contemporary thinking about the traumatized other. Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles, CA, 2011, 6 pp.}, language = {en} }