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Fromm wrote very little on psychoanalytic technique, and his views have to be reconstructed mainly from unpublished and indirect sources. In this paper, a systematic comparison between Freud and Fromm on twelve points of technique is carried out. Fromm agrees with Freud that the aim of psychoanalysis is that of making the unconscious conscious, but he extends this aim to the full recovery of the unconscious. Fromm differs most sharply from Freud on the role of the analyst. In his view, the detached attitude is the most serious defect in Freud’s technique. According to Fromm, the analyst should be his full self with the patient and aim at a >core-to-core< relatedness. He should offer himself as an object of transference, but also as a real person. Resistances should be approached very actively. In this modification of Freud’s technique, Fromm views Ferenczi and Sullivan as his precursors. Fromm’s position is also compared with more recent psychoanalytic developments. It is suggested that, by being intensely involved at an empathic level but by not seeing himself as inevitably enmeshed in the repetition of the past and by not making the therapeutic interaction explicit, Fromm belongs to the analysts characterized by >participation with< and not to those characterized by >participation in<.
Presents a case study of a 30-yr-old man treated for narcissistic personality disorder and attempts to show how further contributions to an alternative approach to psychoanalysis can come from E. FROMM. FROMMian themes are all present in the case in varying degrees. It is suggested that the 2 main features of this case (narcissism and homosexuality) were the outcome of a pathological symbiosis with both parents. Eight themes, drawn both from FROMM's published works and from his unpublished writings, are stressed, including benign vs malignant aggression, having vs being, homosexual and incestuous symbiosis, and secret family narcissism.
The Relevance of Erich Fromm
(1990)