Eric Fromm

Here at The Couple Summit, there are several world-class professionals whom we admire, both for their academic achievements and for the path that they've gone on to pave for themselves within the world of relationship building. For years, we studied the works of hundreds of individuals. Of those hundreds of authors, scientists, poets, researchers, and noteworthy individuals, we'd like to give extra appreciation and praise towards this specific individual. We’d like to introduce you to our fifth Master, Erich Fromm.

Although he was born in Germany, Erich Fromm is known as an American social psychologist with a background in psychoanalysis, sociology, humanistic philosophy, and socialism. With an extensive background in studying human nature, Fromm’s research, discoveries, works, and theories proved to be monumental in our understanding of human relationship building. Fromm’s successes and achievements have earned him an important role amongst our list of Masters here at The Couple Summit.

Who Is Erich Fromm?

Erich Fromm was born in the year 1900 and died in 1980. Throughout the 80 years of his life, Fromm became well-known for his philosophies and theories that revolved around human interaction and relationships. Fromm received his Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg in 1922. Formally trained as a psychoanalyst, Fromm spent most of his early career identifying the various confounds that he felt existed in Sigmund Freud’s understanding of the unconscious mind. 

Fromm believed that, “an individual’s personality was the product of culture as well as biology.” With that said, Fromm began to pave his own pathway within the field of psychoanalysis, one in which many of Freud’s most stringent followers vehemently disagreed with. However, it was Fromm’s drive to find his own pathway that allowed him to achieve the great discoveries within the area of human interaction that have helped to move relationship science forward.

Fromm’s Approach

After bouncing around from various universities throughout the United States for a number of years, Fromm finally retained a faculty position at New York University as a professor of psychiatry, a role that was much more suited to his research interests. In the years following his appointment, Fromm went on to publish a number of books and essays that dealt with the understanding of what he considered to be basic human needs. 

As it relates to relationship science, Fromm’s book, “The Art of Loving” is one of the most important books as it relates to love and relationships. In the book, Fromm says, “if a personal loves only one other person and is indifferent to all others, his love is not love, but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism.” 

This powerful and interesting quote points back to Fromm’s understanding of human relationships, in that true love can only exist when a human being is able to extend their love to multiple people. This might confound the very foundation of things like marriage and intimate relationships; however, Fromm would argue that independence is the true route to real love.