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The problem of alienation has been a persistent issue of man since the beginning of civilization and it has been discussed in the history of philosophy since beginning. But as a serious issue the problem of alienation come in to existence after the development of industrialization and technology in a mass scale. Some twentieth century thinkers, philosophers, psychologist, sociologist, and religious scholars prescribed the way to come out from alienation. But in contemporary philosophy the existentialists took the issue of alienation most seriously. They gave their own approach on this issue and propagate a humanistic point of view as a way to come out from alienation. They try to make the philosophy free from the clutches of objectivity and bring the man in center again. Other contemporary western philosophers also influenced by existential movement. For them also the problem of alienation is a serious issue especially the famous philosopher and psychologist Erich Fromm. Fromm observes that in twentieth century man finds himself in a highly mechanical culture dominated by technology. Because of over use and emphasis on technology man becomes alienated from his own personal being. Both existentialists and Erick Fromm believes that man’s subjectivity is lost in the highly technical and mechanical contemporary world. The main issue for these thinkers is not only to understand the concept of alienation but to find out the ways to eliminate the alienation. Through which a human can understand his true being and meaning of life. This is a descriptive paper. The objective of the paper is to explore the issue of alienation in contemporary world and to suggest the ways to come out from the alienation with special reference to Existentialism and Erick Fromm.
The vacuum of kidnapping
(2019)
All forms of kidnapping are presented in this paper, as is their psychodynamic underpinning affecting human behavior: abduction with or without ransom, political kidnapping, kidnapping by well-organized criminal groups, human trafficking and governmental kidnapping, which all highlight the important crises in the major decline in ethics and values. Apathy, fear, and insecurity lead to an increase in dependencies on substances, psychosomatic problems, and depression, which result from the suffering of this >vacuum of kidnapping.< The author wonders, >Has right to live in peace been kidnapped?<
This article analyzes the issues of alienation in the philosophy of Erich Fromm. The development of capitalism has changed the political, economic, and spiritual relationships in the society, and depression, misery, helplessness and solidarity are increasing in people. The philosopher has shown the causes of separation and alienation from the society and ways to get rid of it.
Fromm was one of the first psychoanalysts to deal with the crisis of civilization. His ideas about human nature, the social character and the social unconscious, the pathology of normalcy and the ideal of productivity are important. Fromm criticizes industrialism for its unrealizable promises of freedom and happiness, which correspond to an ideology of growth and progress. The satisfaction of >false< needs and desires does not lead to human well-being.
Trauma is the subject of increasing attention in contemporary psychoanalysis. Its complexities will be explored in a clinical case, emphasizing traumatic experience and unconscious conflict across developmental phases. The patient, a young adult white man began analysis complaining of anxiety and depression. Born to adolescent parents, he had experienced infantile stress and childhood traumatic illness. Needy, greedy, and dependent, he was gratified by the frequency and intimacy of psychoanalysis. Genetic interpretation and reconstruction were particularly important in the analytic process. Analytic progress with attenuation of unconscious conflict and developmental transformation proved enduring after termination.
Review Jonathan Sklar: Dark times. Psychoanalytic perspectives on politics, history and mourning
(2019)
A client who wants his story to be made into a case history presents for psychoanalysis. An artist all his adult life, he expresses his sexual trauma through his art. His more recent artistic output is in the form of avant-garde video montages. The analysis stalls, becalmed by a failure to understand a circumcision event, a punishment for sexual expression. If Ferenczi and the Budapest school model learning from therapeutic errors, freedom of thought, sincerity, and experimentation, then this case history illustrates those. Real sexual trauma and a real circumcision event are entangled with fantasy and art in attempts to come to terms with them. The circumcision event was better understood with multiple readings of Carlo Bonomi’s work, which became part of the analysis. The wider Ferenczi community also became part of the story of the analysis, and in a kind of mutuality the analysis wants to make a contribution to that body of knowledge.
It can be (and has been) claimed that one of the central thematic concerns in Erich Fromm’s immense body of critical work is the exposition of a new >radical< humanist ethic, based upon the normative foundations of human solidarity/relatedness and love. The role of community in this ethic is vital, as Fromm argues for the existence of an intrinsically human need for belonging and communion. According to Fromm, the breakdown of traditional societies in modernity and the adoption of strong anti-traditionalist paradigms in both liberalism and Marxism has paradoxically led to the desire in the contemporary individual to >escape< this freedom, too often resulting in an uncritical adoption of what Eric Hobsbawm calls >invented traditions< in order to rediscover a shared sense of humankind. This article therefore contends that 1) Fromm advocates a form of >critical communitarianism<; and 2) that critical communitarianism can provide a strong foundation for an ethical confrontation with neoliberal modernity, and thereby a reconsidered form of community through human solidarity.
Relational and field theories have much in common, despite divergent foundations. In this paper, several areas of divergence are selected, including the structure of the field as a relational matrix or as an unconscious joint fantasy of the couple; the fate and form of insight; and the nature of the unconscious as relational or ubiquitous. Differences in cognitive and attentional sets are identified and linked to different modes of insight. Using a clinical vignette, these divergences will be illustrated with an attempt to compare and contrast the two approaches through a discussion of how each lens highlights, expands, or forecloses different features of the analytic process. A mode of conceiving the unconscious as unstructured and multiple in potential is offered to reconcile divergent assumptions in therapeutic action. A consideration of Sandor Ferenczi’s clinical emphasis on relaxed technique, elasticity, and especially mutuality suggests that he would have been a field theorist were he among us today.
[...] On this basis, we determined that 231 human genes under study are subject to natural selection against under expression (significance p < 0.0005), which equally supports the human tendencies in domination and subordination such as the norm of a reaction (plasticity) of the human social hierarchy. These findings explain vertical transmission of domination and subordination traits previously observed in rodent models. Thus, the results of this study equally support both sides of the century-old unsettled scientific debate on whether both aggressiveness and the social hierarchy among humans are inherited (as suggested by Freud and Lorenz) or are due to non-genetic social education, when the children are influenced by older individuals across generations (as proposed by Berkowitz and Fromm).
The work of Erich Fromm is often overlooked in contemporary feminist thought. Yet important areas of relevance—his critiques of symbiotic love and sadomasochism, advocacy of mutual recognition, and objections to patriarchal presumptions in Freud’s work—render Fromm’s thought useful for feminists. Disadvantages adhere in Fromm’s ideas too, including sexist language and biologically-tinged maternalism. However, this paper reinterprets these problems to advocate for rediscovering both Fromm’s feminist and humanist aspirations.
The infant observation presented in this paper was conducted weekly for two years. Through an extensive use of clinical vignettes and personal and theoretical considerations, this article aims to highlight that both harmonies and pauses, as well as interruptions and dissonances, can be present in early interactive exchanges, forming the fabric of a relational piece of music that is not always as harmonious as might be desirable. The role of the father in moderating problematic interactions between the mother and her child is also examined.
The author explores the relationship between Sándor Ferenczi and Sigmund Freud in the light of their correspondence. This allows us to see how Freud was able to offer and create for Ferenczi a >professional and personal home< that enabled the latter to find a much more meaningful and creative contact with himself. According to the author, this experience played an important role in Ferenczi’s later readiness to offer to and create with his patients a similar >psychoanalytic home.< As Freud was not able to share such clinical research work with Ferenczi, a conflict developed between them whose nature has occupied psychoanalysts ever since, and whose seeds can be found in the 1246 letters that they exchanged between January 1908 and May 1933. From this point of view, Ferenczi’s Clinical diary (written in 1932 and published only in 1985) can be seen as the continuation of the dialogue they had entertained for so many years, as well as Ferenczi’s attempt not to give up the “professional and personal home” that they had created together.
The fictional protagonist of the Lionel Shriver novel, >We need to talk about Kevin<, massacred nine classmates, his father and his sister with a bow and arrow. He murdered them just before he turned 16, to avoid being prosecuted as an adult. He spared the life of his mother, a kindred spirit, cold, arrogant, who would recognize the depth of his hatred and nihilism. Kevin's maternal grandfather was born in a concentration camp during the Armenian genocide. His mother, Eva, a tough, independent woman, loathed being pregnant and the process of giving birth. Kevin was a demanding baby and then a cruel child. Eva kept telling her husband that she found Kevin's malignity troubling, but he only wanted to see the charming, vulnerable side of the boy. Was Kevin born a sociopath or did he become one due to his experiences in utero and beyond? In this paper, I elucidate how temperamental features, inadequate parenting, transgenerational trauma, and oppressive gender relations created the perfect storm from which Kevin's personality developed. Finally, I will discuss how Eva and Kevin struggled to repair their relationship after the murders, and consider whether forgiveness and reconciliation are even possible after such a heinous act.
Erich Fromm was central to the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research under the direction of Max Horkheimer, but the works of each author, while handling at times similar issues, took different paths. The article’s aim is to analyze how Horkheimer’s anthropology, which would be of importance in Dialectic of Enlightenment, was built as the author embodied in his essays elements of Fromm’s social psychology, albeit overcoming some of its limitations, as well as suggesting new potentials of critique.
The aim of this paper is to examine post-truth politics using Erich Fromm’s theory of narcissism and showing a route towards a sane society in Fromm’s sense. Post-truth situations are generated by negative synergistic effects between narcissistic psychological tendencies and social media. Both of them have so-called filter bubble effects which segregate people from inner and outer reality. The process of integrating an unknown experience or reality into the self produces a new experience. That is a definition of Fromm’s love and the way to overcome narcissism.
Between Thanatos and Eros: Erich Fromm and the psychoanalysis of social networking technology use
(2019)
Social networking technologies have become a ubiquitous framework for social interaction, serving to organise much of the individual’s social life. Such technological structuring affects not merely the individual’s psyche (as a psycho- technics), it also affects broader aspects of society (as a socio-technics). While social networking technologies may serve to transform society in positive ways, such technologies also have the potential to significantly encroach upon and (re) construct individual and cultural meaning in ways that must be investigated. Erich Fromm, who psychoanalytically describes humans as a product of their society and the economic systems within that society, may provide insight into the influence of social networking technologies in contemporary society. He sees the relationship between the individual and society as being in a constant state of dynamic change. Utilising Fromm’s psycho-societal insight, social networking technologies are shown to conflate and confuse the relation between Thanatos and Eros – the Thanatos of a lifeless and consumerist agenda-filled mechanisation, and the Eros associated with social engagement. Thanatos and Eros are tied together via social networking technologies. This results in, firstly, social networking technologies functioning predominantly to further capitalist agendas through the monetisation of these technologies – particularly in terms of linking commodity fetishism and the foundational social drive of the individual. Secondly, social networking technologies mechanise human action according to predictable behavioural paths through the use of these technologies, especially in terms of how socialisation is possible via these technologies (shaping how platonic and romantic relationships may take place in the contemporary world). Such a mechanisation of interpersonal engagement contrasts with Erich Fromm’s assertion that interpersonal relations (vis-à-vis love) are not “mere emotion”, but rather represent an interpersonal creative capacity and interplay. Fromm’s psycho-societal insights will show how contemporary individuals may take independent and responsible rational action to establish accountable and psychologically beneficial ways of engaging with others through social networking technologies.
In this paper I compare Fromm’s account of social transformation with that of Alain Touraine. I argue that although there are many points of connection between Fromm’s account of >the art of living< and Alain Touraine’s account of the >Politics of the Subject,< Fromm ultimately goes beyond Touraine at many points, offering a more detailed explanatory account of how individual transformation is related to the larger, but related, goal of social transformation. I conclude that Fromm’s often overlooked account of the mechanics of individual change ought to be returned to in the process of reinvigorating social theory and practice.
Fromm's Contribution to the Analysis and Critique of the Ongoing Rise of Right-Wing Movements
(2019)
One of the most important political changes in Europe, the USA and beyond is the growth of nationalistic parties and authoritarian structures within states. This contribution aims to demonstrate how a Frommian perspective on basic psychological needs, asynchronicity and alienation could contribute to a social-psychological understanding of nationalistic trends. At the end of the paper, we present some conclusions drawn from this social-psychological point of view concerning the development of a sane society.
The Many Prisons of Women Predestined to Commit a Crime. Sadomasochism as a Female Survival Strategy
(2019)
This is an approach to Mexican female delinquency from a Frommian sadomasochism and a non-punitive criminal justice perspective, based on autobiographical life stories written by women confined in Mexican prisons. Those women have always lived in a society which assaults them in a thousand ways and treats them with inequity; whatever their crime, they are not judged with a gender perspective. Almost all are poor, many of them are mothers forced to abandon their children to serve their sentence behind bars in despicable conditions, accused of crimes that many times they commit induced by their partners' behavior against them.
Erich Fromm’s life during the 1930s, his confrontation with Nazism and his family’s experience of the Holocaust is explored. The impact of this period on his writing, especially Escape from Freedom is considered. The current political situation, in which anti-Semitism has increased and minorities are persecuted makes the examination of Fromm’s experience of persecution and exile especially relevant. The author uses his own German family history and his discovery of his grandfather’s Nazi past to examine the importance of Fromm’s analysis of authoritarian tendencies in Germany in the early 1930s.
Fromm’s necrophilous character is evident in state and governmentally run psychiatric hospitals in the United States. Rigid over-reliance on behavioral interventions can be seen as defensive posturing against the terror of uncertainty when confronted with psychosis. Clinical vignettes with institutionalized schizophrenic adults are presented. A plea is made for clinicians to work from a position of respect and love to fight the dehumanization that can result when a psychoanalytic mindset is abandoned.
Manabendra Nath Roy (1887-1954) was the founder of the Communist Parties of Mexico and India and a socialist-humanist philosopher. In the Western world, his works are today widely ignored and forgotten. This article introduces some philosophical aspects of Roy’s thought. It engages with foundations of his theory and shows its relevance for the study of communication, culture, technology, the human being, fascism, and nationalism. Frankfurt School thinkers such as Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, and Erich Fromm were interested in similar topics to Roy. This article also compares the approach of Roy and the Frankfurt School. It shows parallels between Roy and the first generation of the Frankfurt School with respect to themes such as the dialectic of technology and society, the dialectic of the Enlightenment, fascism, nationalism, and authoritarianism. In the age of new nationalisms and authoritarian capitalism, global environmental crises, capitalist crisis, and the digital crisis, socialist-humanist theories such as M. N. Roy’s can inspire struggles for a humanist and socialist society as antidotes to the acceleration and deepening of the three crises.
In my overview of the development of Fromm's theories, I show, first of all, how Fromm and his theory of relatedness and social character aimed to understand the individual and society in a different way from what was usual at that time. Secondly, I expound how relevant the often ignored social psychoanalytical approach is for current thinking in terms of relatedness, and how open his approach is to insights stemming from human biology.
Introduction
(2019)
Theodor W. Adorno's mature thought can be characterized by the attempt to articulate what he calls a >new categorical imperative after Auschwitz.< By this, Adorno means that theory and praxis must be organized in such a way that the Holocaust does not repeat itself. This article argues that Sándor Ferenczi’s metapsychology is key to understanding Adorno’s attempt to rethink the nature of precisely such a new categorical imperative. One of the key themes of Adorno’s entire corpus is the problem of the “identification with the aggressor” – an idea that originates with Ferenzci rather than, as is commonly thought, Anna Freud. The Ferenczian dimension of Adorno’s thinking becomes particularly clear in Adorno’s thoughts on the question of freedom. In this context, Adorno engages in a psychoanalytically informed critique of the philosophy of freedom and a speculative philosophical critique of psychoanalysis. The fashioning of a >new categorical imperative< after Auschwitz entails a form of education directed towards a new form of Mündigkeit, one oriented towards contradiction, resistance, and a steadfast refusal to >identify with the aggressor.<
Unresolved loss and unresolved trauma in adult mothers, and the commonly disorganized attachment pattern developed by their infants, have been repeatedly reported in longitudinal research literature as a crucial correlate or precedent of severe pathology. We describe and illustrate how unresolved loss and unresolved trauma are manifested in verbatim-transcribed language and how they are to be detected, so that psychoanalysts and clinicians in general are able to distinguish them and understand how such >states of mind< evidence the process of fragmentation they involve. We follow each example with a resolved transcript so it can be contrasted with a nonresolved case. We then describe excerpts of a taped >disorganized infant< – an example of infants who are usually babies of unresolved mothers, as shown during the Adult Attachment Interview. The analyst’s ability to identify and understand these >states of mind< and the subsequent sensitive reflection on the transcendental role of primary traumatic relations, which are involved in fear and the destructive dynamics of mental fragmentation – as seen in empirical research on attachment – can facilitate a resourceful integrative analytic scrutiny of the processes gone through by patients, and encourage the discovery of alternatives for working through the disturbing experience.
A longitudinal study of early attachment and social character development of 14 Nahuat mother-infant dyads -since the infants were 11 months, having assessed them at 9 years of age and again in their late adolescence- show a significant improvement on the youngsters’ emotional development. The study conducted by the Seminario de Sociopsicoanálisis within a 40-year-long humanizing project in the village, called >Intercultural Participation Project,< suggests the benefit of promoting the rescue of their indigenous Nahuat culture and tradition.
Spanish parliament recently issued a new law offering Spanish nationality to Sephardic Jews who so desired and could demonstrate a basic knowledge of the Spanish language and culture. This law attempted to redress a five-centuries-old injustice and was expected to unleash both criticism and praise. Surprisingly, reactions in the public or the press were minimal or absent. Reasons for this are explored through a qualitative study with focus groups, which showed ideas that can be grouped into four main categories: ignorance, justice, distrust, and fear. It is hypothesized that the predominantly silent response to the new law might be due to the fact that it touches on an extremely sensible issue: the historically fragmented Spanish identity. A position of negation is constructed, to avoid deep anxieties related to the fragile core of a collective identity built from many >others< forced to the refuge of an introspection that protects them from the conviction of not fulfiling the ideal identity status, known by all but reached by none. All those >others< have mixed their bloods with the Old Christians along the centuries, possibly transmitting a profound insecurity about their personal and collective identity that might contribute to understanding current social reactions.
The birth of a child strongly influences the way in which we adults perceive life and, therefore, our inner world. This birth, or rather the expectation of it, initiates in the father a complex process, the paternal function. Despite being a common experience, there are many open questions regarding its development and its impact on the new father. We reflect here on paternal function and explore conscious and unconscious fantasies of the man facing new-found fatherhood. We propose that a kind of pre-Oedipal process has already begun during pregnancy. The new being’s mere existence inside the womb generates an exclusionary force that sets the father’s ambivalent feelings in motion. The overwhelming certainty of motherhood and the generation of the mother–fetus bubble develops in parallel with the uncertainty of the father, immersed in inner conflicts regarding what his relationship with the mother–child couple is and will be. He rapidly experiences how the child’s presence makes him an excluded third party, always longing to fully occupy the place he once enjoyed beside the mother. The baby enters a world where father’s strong ambivalence is already in place, facilitating and setting in motion a full development of the Oedipal process. Finally, some considerations are outlined on the potential influence of this complex ambivalence in large group reactions and the need to be remembered that humans have displayed since ancient historical times.
In this chapter, the author introduces his autobiographical near-death experience of a motorcycle accident as the basis for examining his life and the self-study that forms this book, within a gestalt or whole. Touching on the figure-ground-contact approach of Gestalt Therapy, the author puts this self-study within the context of a lifetime of involvement in the Japanese art of Ki Aikido. In Aikido, one learns to coordinate their mind, body, and life energy (Japanese: ki) to better attune and move in synchronization with the world around them. The ethos of Aikido reflects the broader virtue ethics of traditional Japanese arts – >do<, >michi<, or >way< – and how this approach to education aims for spiritual self-cultivation in daily life, rather than mere acquisition of technical or intellectual knowledge. Through Aikido, Japanese calligraphy or shodo (which the author took up as a comparative/adjunct >way< for his study), and beyond into increased skillful awareness in motorcycling and educational praxis, this chapter draws on Yasuo Yuasa’s theory of ki as ‘teleological intentionality.’ By taking a ‘path’ approach to learning through this >ki awareness< one thus develops and enhances their embodied presence into what Yuasa calls >transpersonal synchronization.<
In the conclusion entitled >A Holistic Relational Paradigm,< the author draws on key themes in the manuscript: attachment, healing, psychosocial development, and an altruistic approach to fostering prosocial behavior. Epstein’s (2014) work relates the early trauma of the Buddha’s loss of his mother after childbirth to his resultant view of ‘suffering.’ Epstein explores how this attachment >wound< is mirrored in the Buddhist view that we suffer as the result of not knowing how to integrate the reality of ‘impermanence.’ The author continues to generalize this universal or psycho-spiritual view (as opposed to one based on our ‘personal’ pathology or ‘narrative’) through the core training principles of Ki Aikido, like the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, as ways of laying out a more liberatory path in daily life. Drawing on the work of Erich Fromm, he further expands on the notion of love, specifically as an approach that fosters applied skillfulness in relationships as an antidote to narcissism. Expanding further, he draws on Matthieu Ricard’s (2015) work on altruism, based in research on its roots in prosocial behavior rather than as moral idealism or superiority.
Drawing on the author’s lifelong practice in the non-competitive and defensive Japanese art of Aikido, this book examines education as self-cultivation, from a Japanese philosophy (e.g. Buddhist) perspective. Contemplative practices, such as secular mindfulness meditation, are being increasingly integrated into pedagogical settings to enhance social and emotional learning and well-being and to address stress-induced overwhelm due to increased pressures on the education system and its constituents. The chapters in this book explore the various ways, through the lens of this non-violent relational art of Aikido, that pedagogy is always something being practiced (on the level of psychological, somatic and emotional registers) and thus holding potential for transformation into being more relational, ecological-minded, and reflecting more ‘embodied attunement.’ Positioning education as a practice, one of self-discovery, the author argues that one can approach personal development as engaging in a spiritual process of integrating mind and body towards full presence of being and existence.
The purpose of this article was to study the creative heritage of Erich Fromm and the formation of >Humanistic Radicalism<. The study was aimed at defining the historical context for the theoretical formation of >Humanistic Radicalism< within the framework of Fromm's >Social Psychoanalysis< and the practical implementation of this concept in the political activities of this personality. Four periods of the introduction of the ideas of >Humanistic Radicalism< by E. Fromm through his political activities were identified. It was found out that the humanistic orientation requires the continuation both in research activities of a person and in everyday socio-cultural life in general, while maintaining dialogical relations with the world.
In this article, the author considered the concept of >Mass Consciousness< in the philosophy of Erich Fromm. The phenomenon of >Mass Consciousness< was studied from the standpoint of E. Fromm’s «Humanistic Radicalism», and was analyzed in comparison with classical Freudian psychoanalysis and other prominent thinkers of the twentieth century. It was found that according to Erich Fromm's social psychoanalysis, aggression is the result of social exclusion, mass consciousness, and conformism. The prevention of these phenomena can only be realized by a healthy humanistic society, in which faith, hope, love, understanding, sanity, mutual respect, empathy that cannot be explained by human instincts.
The critical theory of the Frankfurt School reached Egypt in 1955, when the Arabic translation of Erich Fromm’s >The Sane Society< (New York, 1955) was published in Cairo. Later, Herbert Marcuse’s >Soviet Marxism< (1958) was translated into Arabic in Beirut in 1965, and with the rise of student protests in France, Germany, and the United States, much attention was given to Marcuse; almost all his writings were translated into Arabic between 1969 and 1973. This article explores the nature of individual >receptions< of the critical theory of the Frankfurt School at Egyptian universities. To this end, it briefly introduces the early generation of the Frankfurt School, as well as the reasons of interest in its fate in Egyptian universities. Though master’s theses and doctoral dissertations do not represent a university’s orientation to critical theory, and at best represent the perspective of their individual authors, this article shows that key individual theses and dissertations testify to an early rejection of the Frankfurt School and to the late adoption of it as a critical paradigm of the transformations in Egyptian society.
Erich Fromm’s analysis of >pathological normalcy< offers promising social-theoretical resources to help transcend the contemporary, >domesticated<, diagnosis of social pathologies. This article commences by briefly tracing the numerous limitations of the current orthodoxy, epitomised by the recognition-cognitive >pathologies of recognition< approach. A sympathetic reconstruction of Erich Fromm’s diagnosis of pathological normalcy is then presented as a promising palliative. The strengths of Fromm’s social-theoretical framework are then outlined: Fromm’s scholarship presents a structure through which objectively inadequate and contradictory social conditions can be diagnosed, while emphasizing their important connections to the social-psychological pathologies which sustain them. The efficacy of Fromm’s approach is then defended against post-modern and social-constructivist critiques. This article thus supports the rehabilitation of Fromm’s work within the sociological mainstream as an important antidote to the ‘domesticated’ framing of social pathology which continues to dominate contemporary scholarship.
The International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies (IFPS) was established in 1962. The first 20 years of the Federation were a time when psychoanalysis was divided into so-called liberal and orthodox factions. The (then orthodox) International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) did not admit all psychoanalytic societies, and some societies did not want to join it. In the IFPS, non-IPA-psychoanalysts from Europe, the USA, and South and Middle America came together to discuss their new approaches to psychoanalysis and to find ways to better cope with their patients’ problems. At the beginning an informal organization of autonomous societies, the IFPS persisted for 12 years without a charter. The first three secretary generals came from the German Psychoanalytical Society and greatly influenced the first few years of the IFPS. The IFPS held several international conferences, and new psychoanalytic societies became members. In 1977, after the VIth Forum in Berlin, the IFPS fell into an identity crisis. The conflicts centered on the assumption of responsibility, the authority of the members, and how to understand the aim and sense of the organization. This article deals with the theoretical background of the early IFPS and the development of its self-concept.