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Adult fixation to the mother can be seen as “one of the ‘spiritual’ answers to the human existence” (Fromm, 1992, p. 40). The deep yearning for a powerful figure to trust and submit to, for a “magic helper” to care for them, leads humans away from the difficult path toward individuation and is seen in the phenomenon of transference.
Fromm asks if transference is really a question of repeating childhood experiences or if it is not rather “the mobilization of the ‘idolatric passion’” (1992, p. 40). An idol is a human construct onto which humans transfer their faculties and strengths.
Fromm compares the genetic approach, the psychogenesis of the present situation, with the functional approach, which is transversal and looks at the functioning whole of a person at a given moment. He believes that the two approaches should be alternated in psychoanalytic work. It is the functional approach that explains the role of transference as an idol, however.
Seen from an “idologic” perspective, transference is treated in analysis by continually confronting the infantile, sick part of the patient with the healthy part, in a dialogue based on “center-to-center” relatedness between analyst and patient. This article attempts to explain the difficult relationship between Freud and Fromm on the subject of transference and to set out the humanistic positions of contemporary psychoanalysis.
In his book The Legacy of Erich Fromm (1991), Daniel Burston divides psychoanalysts into three groups, according to their relationship to Freud. He calls these three groups “loyal opposition,” “dissident fringe,” and “crypto-revisionists,” assigning Fromm to the loyal oppositionists, together with Groddeck, Ferenczi, the early Karen Horney, Fairbairn, Guntrip, and others. In placing Fromm in this group, Burston reflects what Fromm said about himself during his long interview with Evans: “I feel… like a pupil and a translator of Freud” (Evans, 1966, p. 59).
In the same interview, Fromm speaks about his colla