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EARLY THIS YEAR I HAD A GROWING feeling that I should be calling Erich—but this time did not—as occasionally I had felt pressed to call Ed Tauber or David Schecter to check out how Erich was. So, when a friend phoned to apprise me of Fromm's death, the sad news
came with that curious sense of shock that long-delayed expectation evokes.
With Death comes the reintegration of the perception and image of the other person, that for a while seems larger than life, but actually is life; is that person. For once, the fragmented perceptions become the Whole, and that truly is greater than the sum of its parts. Is this the experience that primitives have spoken of as the spirit hovering over the body it has left; is it the projection of the synthesis?
Fromm in a very singular way is woven into my Self. He has been and now more than ever is a presence for me which Death sharpens. "Erich, " (I wrote to Annis1), "is a friend in the most profound sense, my teacher to whom I turned thirstily for nurturing the Self that was nascent within me. He provided for me missing pieces that I was seeking 'out there, '" (though I am indebted to many).
I became acquainted with him stimulated through Clara's2 description of him and his interests, his courage and achievement. I began following him about to the courses he gave at the New School and to analysts-in-training, before the separation of the White Institute-to-be from the Horney group, which in fact occurred because of the issue of his not being an M.D. and giving clinical rather than theoretical courses. Then he became supervisor, analyst, colleague, and friend to me. At times, I travelled to Bennington, and Mexico for analysis, and then to teach, at the newly founded psychoanalytic institute in Mexico. I later visited him in Europe and here and there, and as f