Fromm's Clinical Practice: Insight or New Experience?

  • Marco Bacciagaluppi attempts to place Fromm's clinical approach within the spectrum of current psychoanalytic models of therapy. Based on Goldberg, Hoffman, and Hirsch, among others, Bacciagaluppi distinguishes three therapeutic stances: the observationalinterpretative stance, in which the analyst observes conflict and limits his participation to providing insight; the >participation with< stance of empathic immersion into the patient's experience; and the >participation in< stance, which recognizes the analyst's inevitable involvement in (and likely reenactment of) the patient's problems. Bacciagaluppi notes several discrepancies in Fromm's approach, including the discrepancy between Fromm's advanced theoretical position, which places him in the >participation in< position, and his emphasis on insight, which places him in the observational-interpretative position. A second discrepancy is that between Fromm's emphasis on providing insight and the importance he attributed to providing a new experience for the patient. Bacciagaluppi concentrates primarily on the second discrepancy and illustrates Fromm's approach using a published case he supervised. – In the clinical case, Fromm is empathic and respectful toward the young woman's traumatic history and emphasizes, like Ferenczi and Bowlby, the importance of real-life experience. At the same time, Fromm states that the essence of analytical cure resides in the conflict engendered by the meeting of the rational and irrational parts of the personality. Bacciagaluppi points out that Fromm at times seems to downplay the importance of the analyst, and lists the personality of the analyst as just one of seven other factors that are important in clinical work. In discussing the importance of new experience in therapeutic change, Bacciagaluppi points out that new experience is seldom new, and that we often find the existence of >weak precursors< (Hoffman 1983) that provided in childhood a supportive and positive experience for the patient. Bacciagaluppi points out that we should be grateful for these weak precursors, and need to be modest in our claims to success as healers, as we are often building on the positive contributions of others who preceded us. Bacciagaluppi offers two clinical examples that illustrate the weak precursor concept. The first example exemplifies a case in which the history of a weak precursor was present from the onset of the therapy. In the second example the existence of a positive figure in the patient's life emerged only much later in the therapy.

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Metadaten
Author:Marco Bacciagaluppi
Parent Title (English):M. Cortina and M. Maccoby (Eds.), A Prophetic Analyst. Erich Fromm's Contribution to Psychoanalysis, Nothvale and London (Jason Aronson Inc.) 1996, pp. 223-234.
Document Type:Articles
Language:English
Year of first Publication:1996
Release Date:2012/12/13
Format:PDF-file upon request / PDF-Datei auf Anfrage
IdNo:Bacciagaluppi_M_1996a
Writings about Erich Fromm (Secondary Literature):Articles / Artikel
Erich Fromm's Library and Erich Fromm Archive:Articles / Artikel
Licence (German):
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