Erich Fromm and the revival of radical psychoanalysis

Every year, the Erich Fromm Study Center at the IPU Berlin hosts an Erich Fromm Lecture. This year, Prof. Michael Thompson, Professor of Political Theory at William Paterson University (USA), will be the speaker.
 

In this lecture, Erich Fromm's theories of psyche and society will be explored as a possible basis for a revival of a radical psychoanalysis. This approach aims to foster an awareness of freedom by (1) emphasizing emancipation from both internalized and external authoritarian forms of relating and (2) developing a sense of self as a purposeful, active, and self-determining agent in the world. Fromm's ideas are discussed in comparison to those of Marcuse and other theorists whose psychoanalytic theories have been appropriated by the neoliberal transformation of modernity. The lecture concludes with an outline of the aims of a radical psychoanalysis along Frommian lines.