DR. FROMM WAS ALWAYS present. I'd say something. He'd say something. I'd say something and he'd slap his thigh prefacing a trenchant remark with "Look here. …" I looked, and picked up his own excitement for the process. It was this excitement, and curiosity, with his consequent joy—about the plot of a person's life, that he subscribed to. Dr. Fromm's formulations were keyed to the patient's actual experience, the actual conditions of his life, and his idiosyncratic interpretation of events, so that the patient's social practice seemed inevitable.

I presented to him the analysis of a young woman, of ethnic minority, who had been sorely treated by the government, and exploited by various males in her life (paternal figures, siblings, doctors, teachers, agents, etc.). I stated at one point that "I didn't blame her" for some anger and hostility she was expressing toward someone. Dr. Fromm remarked casually that yes I didn't