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 PSYCHOANALYTIC HORIZONS

Psychoanalysis is unique in being at once a theory and a therapy, a

method of critical thinking and a form of clinical practice. Now in its
second century, this fusion of science and humanism derived from Freud
has outlived all predictions of its demise. Psychoanalytic Horizons
evokes the idea of a convergence between realms as well as the outer
limits of a vision. Books in the series test disciplinary boundaries and will
appeal to scholars and therapists who are passionate not only about the
theory of literature, culture, media, and philosophy but also, above all,
about the real life of ideas in the world.

Series Editors
Esther Rashkin, Mari Ruti, and Peter L. Rudnytsky
Advisory Board
Salman Akhtar, Doris Brothers, Aleksandar Dimitrijevic, Lewis Kirshner,
Humphrey Morris, Hilary Neroni, Dany Nobus, Lois Oppenheim,
Donna Orange, Peter Redman, Laura Salisbury, Alenka Zupančič

Volumes in the Series

Mourning Freud, Madelon Sprengnether
Does the Internet Have an Unconscious? Slavoj Žižek and Digital Culture,
Clint Burnham
In the Event of Laughter: Psychoanalysis, Literature and Comedy, Alfie Bown
On Dangerous Ground: Freud’s Visual Cultures of the Unconscious, Diane
O’Donoghue
For Want of Ambiguity: Order and Chaos in Art, Psychoanalysis, and
Neuroscience, Ludovica Lumer and Lois Oppenheim
Life Itself Is an Art: The Life and Work of Erich Fromm, Rainer Funk
Born After: Reckoning with the German Past, Angelika Bammer
Critical Theory Between Klein and Lacan: A Dialogue (forthcoming),
Amy Allen and Mari Ruti
At the Risk of Thinking: An Intellectual Biography of Julia Kristeva
(forthcoming), Alice Jardine
Transferences: The Aesthetics and Poetics of the Therapeutic Relationship
(forthcoming), Maren Scheurer
The Analyst’s Desire: Ethics in Theory and Clinical Practice (forthcoming),
Mitchell Wilson
ii
 Life Itself Is an Art
The Life and Work of
Erich Fromm

Rainer Funk
Translated from German by Susan Kassouf

iii
 BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
Bloomsbury Publishing Inc
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50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK
BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published in the United States of America 2019
Copyright © Rainer Funk, 2019
First published in German by Herder Verlag
Cover design by Alice Marwick
Cover portrait of Erich Fromm, 1980, photographer: Thea Goldman © Rainer Funk
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission
in writing from the publishers.
Bloomsbury Publishing Inc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any
third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this
book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret
any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to
exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Funk, Rainer, author. | Kassouf, Susan (Susan Margaret), translator.
Title: Life itself is an art : the life and work of Erich Fromm / Rainer Funk;
translated from German by Susan Kassouf.
Other titles: Leben selbst ist eine Kunst. English
Description: New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. | Series: Psychoanalytic
horizons | Translation of: Das Leben selbst ist eine Kunst : Einfèuhrung in Leben
und Werk von Erich Fromm. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019007915 (print) | LCCN 2019011476 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781501351464 (ePub) | ISBN 9781501351471 (ePDF) |
ISBN 9781501351457 (hardback : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781501351440 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Fromm, Erich, 1900–1980. | Psychoanalysts–Germany–Biography. |
Psychoanalysts–United States–Biography.
Classification: LCC BF109.F76 (ebook) | LCC BF109.F76 F855 2019 (print) |
DDC 150.19/5092 [B] –dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019007915
ISBN: HB: 978-1-5013-5145-7
PB: 978-1-5013-5144-0
ePDF: 978-1-5013-5147-1
eBook: 978-1-5013-5146-4
Series: Psychoanalytic Horizons
Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
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and sign up for our newsletters.
iv
 Contents

List of Figures vii

Preface viii

Introduction: Direct Encounter 1

Face to face 2
Letting someone sense: “This is you” 5
An exhilarating experience 7
Encountering the stranger 11
The art of living as direct encounter 15

1 Roads to the Unconscious 19

Fromm’s road to psychoanalysis 19
The unconscious as repressed 23
The power of rationalization 25
Indicators of the unconscious 27
Defensive strategies against becoming conscious of
the unconscious 30
Understanding the unconscious 32
The dream as a road to the unconscious 33
Free association as a road to the unconscious 35
Parapraxis as a road to the unconscious 38
Transference as a road to the unconscious 40

2 The Individual as a Social Being 45

Erich Fromm—an only child becomes a psychoanalyst
of society 45
What makes a father beat his children? 54
The individual as socialized being 56
The meaning of character formations 58
Society within the individual—the social character 61

v
vi Contents

3 How Man Succeeds 67

Love in the life of Erich Fromm 67
What is good for man 72
The primary tendency to grow 74
The growth orientation of one’s own powers 76
Conceptual approaches 78
The productive orientation 80
The capacity for growth at the crossroads 84

4 How Society Succeeds at the Expense of Man 89

Erich Fromm’s suffering in society 89
The authoritarian character—at the expense of autonomy 95
The marketing orientation—at the expense of a sense
of identity 101
The narcissistic character—at the expense of interest in
the other 110
The ego orientation—at the expense of ego strength 129

5 Ways toward Direct Encounter 145

Erich Fromm’s guides on the way toward direct encounter 145
Preconditions for an encounter with one’s own self 151
Capacity for critique and readiness for dis-illusionment 153
Preparatory exercises 157
Self-analysis as a way of encounter 160
Encounters and their effects 165

References 169
Index 177
 Figures

1 Fromm, 1970, by Liss Goldring. © Lit Fromm Estate x

2 Fromm as a student, 1920. © Lit Fromm Estate 18
3 Fromm at Davos, 1932. © Lit Fromm Estate 44
4 Fromm at Bennington, 1947, by Henny Fromm.
© Lit Fromm Estate 66
5 Fromm as a lecturer, 1960. © Lit Fromm Estate 88
6 Fromm meditating, 1968. © Lit Fromm Estate 144

vii
 Preface

Not only medicine, engineering, and painting are arts; living itself is
an art—in fact, the most important and at the same time the most
difficult and complex art to be practiced by man. Its object is not this
or that specialized performance, but the performance of living, the
process of developing into that which one is potentially. In the art of
living, man is both the artist and the object of his art; he is the
sculptor and the marble; the physician and the patient.
Man for Himself, 1947a, pp. 17–18

These sentences from Erich Fromm’s book Man for Himself are
foundational. They signal a view of humanity that reflects the unique
conditions of human life, in contrast to other life forms. Because of the
way man’s brain developed, he has been endowed with a consciousness
of himself and with the capacity to imagine reality independently of
sensory stimuli.1 These neurobiological characteristics mean not only
that man can shape his own life, but also that he must shape it.
The necessity of an art of living expresses itself through particular
psychic needs, specifically the need to relate to reality, to other people,
and to oneself. The possibility of an art of living is manifested in the
different ways that people can relate to themselves, to each other, to the
natural world, to work, or to reality: mindfully, calculatingly, lovingly,
patronizingly, contemptuously, appreciatively, exploitatively, caringly,
etc. Humans are capable of every possibility, but not every possibility is
conducive to their personal well-being and the well-being of society.
For to flourish as a human being therefore depends upon which
possibilities are realized, and whether or not the conditions of living
impede or even thwart certain possibilities. In addition to these
sociopolitical and ethical dimensions, there is still another feature of

1
As Fromm tended to use “man” to describe people in his writings, thereby indicating both
sexes with the masculine form, I keep this usage in the quotations as well as elsewhere.

viii
 Preface ix

living as an art, or the art of living, as Fromm understands it: the goal is
not to know how life functions, in the way that self-help books impart
information about a certain sort of expertise and its application. For
man, life itself is an art, because what allows man and society to flourish
can only be recognized by the transformative effects of the art of living.
The following introduction to Fromm attempts to do justice to the
foundational idea that life itself is an art by exploring the connections
between his life and his work. The theoretical aspects of Fromm’s thought
are preceded by biographical sections that link his theoretical insights
with his life history. This introduction to the life and work of Fromm thus
reveals itself to be an introduction to the art of living according to Fromm.
The uniqueness of Fromm’s psychology lies in his social-
psychoanalytic approach in which the individual is understood
primarily as a social being. The demands of the market and communal
life are thereby reflected in a particular psychic structural formation
that Fromm called social character. Yet, the individual is only conscious
of socially generated impulses to the extent that these impulses
correspond to social and individual ideals. For Fromm, there is not
only an individual unconscious, but also a social unconscious as well
as social repression. This book aims to provide interested readers as
well as students with an accessible yet still precise and comprehensive
introduction to the life’s work of Erich Fromm.
I would like to thank Dr. Susan Kassouf for translating this book into
English. She is not merely familiar with psychoanalytic theories but also
gifted with a nuanced sense of language that has ideally equipped her to
convey Fromm’s humanistic ideas.
And I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Peter
Rudnytsky, coeditor of the Psychoanalytic Horizons series, and to
Haaris Naqvi, Editorial Director of Bloomsbury Academic, for their
interest in Erich Fromm’s life and work and for their great support in
making it possible to publish this book.
Rainer Funk
Tübingen
October 2018
 Figure 1 Fromm, 1970, by Liss Goldring. © Lit Fromm Estate.

x
 Introduction

Direct Encounter

On September 1, 1972, I rang the bell at the entrance to the apartment

building Casa La Monda in Muralto, near Locarno, Switzerland, and
took the tiny elevator to the fifth floor. I had no idea that this first
personal encounter with Erich Fromm would be the beginning of a life-
changing relationship for me. Having just begun work on a doctoral
dissertation in theological ethics, I was determined to find out how
Fromm, a self-avowed non-theist, justified his humanistic ethics
without believing in an entity that transcended the human being and
human thought.
Everything that I had been taught up to that point and everything
that I had learned, tried, and experienced in the previous twenty-nine
years had been centered around education and ideas. I was absolutely
convinced that this was the way to master life, even my personal, social,
moral, and religious life. My educational goal was to comprehend and
intellectually to preserve what made us human. After Auschwitz, I was
equally certain that we could only place our hopes in humanity if it
were protected against failure by something that transcended it.
Fromm’s humanistic justification of ethics struck me as dubious—too
trusting and naive. In my initial letter to him of August 1, 1972, I had
already intimated that his humanism would clearly be “the starting
point for a constructive debate.”
The elevator finally arrived on the fifth floor. When the doors opened,
I looked straight at Erich Fromm. He was standing in the doorway of
his apartment, regarding me in a friendly and expectant way. I took two
steps toward him and greeted the 72-year-old stiffly with the formal
address “Professor.” He shook hands with me and facing me, replied,
“Guten Tag, Herr Funk.” In the hallway behind him Annis, his American

1
2 Life Itself Is an Art

wife two years his junior, appeared. She was a head taller than he, and
greeted me in an almost incomprehensible Southern drawl: “How are
you?” Her facial expression revealed curiosity, with an amicable but
slightly skeptical smile.
Fromm invited me to join him in his study. My first impression was
of the breathtaking view of Lake Maggiore from the window. Fromm
had positioned his desk—strewn with books and manuscripts—in
front of the picture window that extended across the room so that his
gaze always fell on the water and its dramatic interplay with light. On
the opposite shore, the peak of Mt. Gambarogno was visible through
the sunny haze of the late summer afternoon.
Not until later did I become aware to what degree a person’s
relationship with nature instinctively creates a sense of trust in me.
Here, I had apparently encountered another human being who shared
my affinity. Fromm offered me a chair next to this desk, facing the room.
The bookshelves were overflowing, with manuscripts, handwritten
drafts, and notes piled on every conceivable surface. This rather chaotic
environment became obscured, however, when he seated himself and
focused on me with an indescribable expression in his eyes.

Face to face

Fromm looked at me in such a straightforward way that my attempts at

polite conversation ceased abruptly and any superficial courtesies
became unnecessary. Although we had only met face-to-face a few
moments before, a dimension for the relationship had already emerged,
one that allowed for closeness and trust, but no longer allowed for the
evasion of a question or topic with clever remarks. Somehow Fromm’s
eyes, encircled by wrinkles and scrutinizing me intently, managed to
initiate a conversation that allayed my anxieties and made it possible for
me to concentrate intently.
The initial focus of our meeting was by no means my questions
about his work and thought. Fromm inquired about my professional
 Introduction: Direct Encounter 3

situation and why I was interested in his ideas, particularly his ethics.
Above all, he asked which aspects of psychoanalysis, religion, and
theology interested me. He even wanted to know my stance on
Germany’s Ostpolitik, my opinion of the Bavarian-born politician Franz
Josef Strauss, and my assessment of Konrad Lorenz’s theory of
aggression. It wasn’t his intention, however, to discern my political or
ideological orientation as quickly as possible. The questions—as it
became clear to me through our conversations over the following eight
years—were intended to reveal my deepest concerns and preoccupations.
Fromm wanted to understand my innermost being: if and what I loved
and hated, valued and sought, critically assessed and rejected, what
appealed to me, encouraged, stimulated, and angered me, delighted or
thrilled me, what made me feel anxious or guilty, or what frightened
me. He was curious about my feelings, my needs, my interests, and my
passions.
This was something entirely new to me. It was not my “head,” my
thoughts, my intellectual abilities, or my sophistication that interested
him, but—to continue on the same metaphorical level—my “heart.”
What motivated me, fascinated me, passionately moved me, what was
behind my values and compelled me—this is what he wanted to learn.
Thinking, the art of argument, brainwork, knowledge—all of these were
at most means for arriving at what really drove people.
Much later I came to realize that the therapeutic focus of the
psychoanalysis I had undergone over the course of my university
education could be valid for every human encounter, and that Fromm
actually advocated a way of life with goals different from those familiar
to me from the academic world of the humanities. There, the mind, the
faculty of memory, the capacity for conceptual and intellectual thinking
were trained in order to gain control over the will, affects, and needs.
This was reputedly the only way to communicate and to conduct
scholarship: without the distracting interference of feelings.
In contrast, Fromm’s undivided attention was directed toward
coming into contact with inner strivings and feelings, understanding
them not as obstructing but as bearing energy. Even if the emotional
4 Life Itself Is an Art

energies were less than flattering, preventing thinking and acting in line
with reality, it was crucial to make contact with them and meet them
with understanding. Only in this way could the hidden meaning of
intense feelings, such as jealousy or a paralyzing sense of inferiority, for
example, be recognized, and the energy bound there be released for a
rational or loving approach. The result was a school of thought in which
“head” and “heart” were linked and that strove for cognitive insights
based on feelings. Consequently, it comes as no surprise that Fromm
placed particular emphasis on the fundamental role of feelings.
Through his interest and questions, Fromm wanted to get in touch
with my inner world, my rational and irrational, overt and covert
strivings. To do so, he used eye contact. Since infancy we have all learned
to express our inner state—our affects, feelings, wishes, and needs, as
well as our inner reactions—through eye contact.
Naturally, at the time, I was incapable of fully comprehending this.
What I did sense, however, was that Fromm had a special way of
approaching me: it had a great deal to do with his gaze, which one could
hardly evade. The pupils of his blue, myopic eyes behind the rimless
eyeglasses appeared to be diminished in size, causing his look to seem
almost penetrating. His gaze corresponded to his way of being interested
in my inner life, my soul.
But there was something else about the way Fromm looked at me,
spoke to me, and focused the conversation. Despite the directness and
bluntness with which he approached the uncovering of my soul, I did
not at all feel interrogated, cornered, judged, unmasked, or exposed. I
quickly sensed that he was dealing with me in a pleasant way, with
understanding and warm-heartedness, and that I had no inclination to
justify or conceal myself. He reached out to me and, through his sincere
interest in what concerned me, let me sense that there was no reason to
fear for myself or my inner world. Every look and every word conveyed
a sense of solidarity and kindness.
This type of human encounter was an entirely new experience for me:
this way of conversing, of being with the other, of venturing into that
world of feelings and passions at work behind our thinking. With the