A Prophetic Analyst

Reviews / Votes

Despite his international prominence as a social theorist and cultural critic, Erich Fromm's enormous influence on the development of psychoanalytic theory and practice over the past several decades has operated behind the scenes. Cortina and Maccoby have collected a wide array of contributions on Fromm the clinician. Fromm the prophet, Fromm the Theorist, Fromm the provocateur, and Fromm the teacher that convey the manifold ways in which Erich Fromm instructed, goaded, and inspired so many of the major currents in psychoanalytic thinking in recent decades. -- Stephen A. Mitchell With this volume and the recent resurgence of publications by and about Erich Fromm, we can hear a voice of impassioned reason once again. Fromm spoke of the centrality of the relationship in the analytic process and of the importance of the complete human context for the meaning of personal development and psychotherapeutic change. Maccoby and Cortina have gathered an impressive and articulate array of articles and scholars who help us to understand Fromm anew, and who gave him his rightful place as a forerunner of modern relational theory. Their own chapter integrates this vision and introduces the novice to this important body of work. A Prophetic Analyst is recommended for scholars and questioning clinicians alike. It will help us all to understand the centrality of the relationship in human development and the importance of the social context for everything that we experience. -- David E. Scharff, M.D., International Psychotherapy Institute and the IPA Committee on Family and Couple Psychoanalysis