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In 1951, Erich Fromm published a book on the nature of dreams entitled The Forgotten Language. More than 60 years later the title of that book might serve as an apt metaphor for the status of Fromm's wide-ranging body of work. Interpersonal psychoanalysts have rediscovered
the importance of dreams, in part as a result of Fromm's early book, yet the same cannot be said of Fromm himself, who is frequently overlooked, if not altogether neglected. The historical progression of psychoanalytic theory and practice means that many pioneers are no longer read even though their concepts are part of our daily vocabulary. What makes Fromm's situation different is the wider significance of his work and the fact that he crossed the traditional divide between the clinical, academic, and public realms with ease. In fact, it may be Fromm's interdisciplinary identity that is part of the problem when it comes to defining his significance. As psychoanalysts we tend to feel most comfortable when we perceive someone as solidly a member of the group to which we belong. In contrast to the majority of his psychoanalytic peers, Fromm was a renowned social theorist and a revered public intellectual, yet not wholly defined by any of these roles.
It is easy to forget just how popular Fromm once was. His literary output is vast. Between his first bestseller, Escape from Freedom, published in 1941, and his last book, To Have or To Be, published in 1976, Fromm wrote and lectured seemingly without pause. His books were translated into dozens of languages and have sold in the many millions. In the late 1960s, when Fromm reached the height of his fame in the United States, he gave a three-week speaking tour in California that was attended by over 60,000 people, and this well before the age of social media. As impressive as these statistics are, my favorite indicator of Fromm's influence was that fact that the FBI kept an active watch on his activities. Fromm's FBI file contains more than 600 pages.