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THIS HARVEST OF PAPERS was reaped in response to an invitation extended to several analysts of varied backgrounds. Each of them was urged to comment freely on Chapter III of Erich Fromm's (1947) Man for Himself, an excerpt from which (pp. 44–49) is included here. This particular statement by Fromm is selected for special attention as a relatively early yet full expression of themes that endured in his writings until his death in 1980. My first encounter with Man for Himself still is vivid in memory for its direct challenge to the credo of scientific neutrality into which my generation of psychoanalysts and social scientists had been educated.
The issues he posed so long ago continue to confront analysts each day, pervasively woven into their exchanges with patients. Therefore it is worthwhile to test out how well his position has weathered the intervening years. To judge by this small but thoughtful group of writers, at least one part of Fromm's thesis is now well established. It is the impossibility of moral neutrality in the consulting room. But as an alternative to neutrality, his advocacy of a humanistic ethic, that provides a universal guide to both a sane society and individual mental health, has aroused skepticism. From a social constructivist perspective, it has a curiously ethnocentric flavor.
But to say more is to encroach upon the observations made by the individual discussants who comprise this symposium. The first of them, Rose Spiegel, economically sketches an outline of certain of Fromm's ideas, conveying a sense of his personal impact on