Erich Fromm

Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, sketched by Arturo Espinosa. Photo by Arturo Espinosa. Licensed under the Creative Common via Wikimedia Commons

Annotated Links

A Psychoanalyst Who Couldn’t Understand War is Born March 23, 1900 is the birthdate of the Jewish scholar and psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, who gave up the religious obligations of the Orthodox Judaism of his youth for the study of the psychology of love – and war, which, to his mind, made very little rational sense. From Haaretz, March 23, 2015.

Biography by Douglas Kellner.

Erich Fromm on the Art of Loving and What Is Keeping Us from Its Mastery There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly, as love. Read about Erich Fromm’s book The Art of Loving in this essay by Maria Popova for BrainPickings, October 29, 2015.

The International Erich Fromm Society Presents an overview of Fromm’s life and work, bibliographies of his own writings and writings about him, contributions by Fromm himself and by others discussing his ideas.

e-Textbook From the electronic textbook created for undergraduate and graduate courses in Personality Theories by George Boeree of Shippensburg University.

Overview The Encyclopedia of Informal Education presents this overview of the life and work of Erich Fromm: Freedom and Alienation, and Loving and Being, in Education.

Erich Fromm Quotes. This collection of Erich Fromm quotes from various sources were collected and organized by Steven Hein.

Assignments, Exercises, and Activities

Electronic Texts

Original Writings by Erich Fromm Over 100 PDFs of Fromm’s writings (in English or German) are available from the International Erich Fromm Society’s website by clicking on “Downloads” from the menu at the top.

Examples and Illustrations

Lecture Notes

Lecture Notes Victor Daniels, Sonoma State University, provides these lecture notes which provide an excellent overview of Fromm’s theories and techniques, including the the four nonproductive personality orientations.

Slide Presentations

Tests, Measures, and Scales

Fromm’s Orientations Test Find out which one of Eric Fromm’s five personality types you are most like in this test posted by George Boeree of Shippensburg University.

Multimedia Resources

Erich Fromm documentary. Erich Fromm discusses his theories and philosophies in this documentary excerpted in four parts. Watch Part 1 (6 minutes, 25 seconds),Part 2 (10 minutes, 5 seconds), Part 3, (6 minutes, 6 seconds) and Part 4 (5 minutes, 19 seconds).

Erich Fromm interviewed by Mike Wallace in this vintage documentary from 1958. Runs 29 minutes, 35 seconds.

Erich Fromm radio lecture. How Can Conflicts Be Resolved Without War? given on April 2, 1970. (Audio with photos). Part 1: (9 minutes, 20 seconds), Part 2: (8 minutes, 43 seconds), Part 3: (9 minutes, 52 seconds),Part 4: (9 minutes, 42 seconds) and Part 5: (9 minutes, 14 seconds).