Book
Escape from Freedom
What it shows
- 1941
Erich Fromm introduced Social character
Fromm used the phrase social character structure in his 1935 essay on the social determination of psychoanalytic therapy, after sketching the idea in the early 1930s as the libidinal structure of society, and set out the concept systematically in the appendix to Escape from Freedom (1941).
Erich Fromm introduced Authoritarian character
Fromm framed the authoritarian character in his social-psychological contribution to the Frankfurt Institute's Studies on Authority and the Family (1936) and set it out at length in Escape from Freedom (1941) as a sado-masochistic structure that both submits to authority and craves to dominate.
- 1941
Erich Fromm introduced Mechanisms of escape
In the fifth chapter of Escape from Freedom (1941) Fromm described authoritarianism, destructiveness and automaton conformity as the ways in which the isolated modern individual flees the burden of freedom.
Sigmund Freud influenced Erich Fromm
Fromm took from Freud the dynamic concept of character and the method of unconscious motivation, while rejecting the libido theory and Freud's picture of the individual as essentially opposed to society.