Psychoanalytic therapy is examined by highlighting its social and cultural determinants, focusing on the concepts of repression and resistance. Repression is shown to originate not only from fear of external punishment or loss of love from significant others, but above all from the threat of social isolation and loss of communal support. Resistance inevitably emerges in analytic treatment as an indicator that repressed material is being approached. The traditional analytic stance, characterized by neutrality and emotional detachment, is critically reassessed, arguing that it reflects the values and taboos of bourgeois society. Through a detailed discussion of Freud's views on tolerance, sexual morality, sublimation, and culture, it is argued that psychoanalytic technique may unconsciously reproduce authoritarian and patriarchal attitudes. It is important that the analyst's actual personality and unconscious attitudes are characterized by an unconditional affirmation of the patient's striving for happiness as a crucial condition for weakening resistance and achieving therapeutic change.

Viene pubblicata per la prima volta in italiano una lezione che Erich Fromm tenne il 28 maggio 1957 alla New School for Social Research di New York. Questa era l'ultima di una serie di lezio-ni sui concetti principali della psicoanalisi freudiana, la maggior parte delle quali non furono regi-strate mentre quest'ultima fu registrata e trascritta. Fromm discute i seguenti argomenti: il concetto fisiologico di sessualità in Freud e la concezione biologica della sessualità proposta da Fromm; il ruolo della mascolinità e della femminilità; il concetto freudiano di libido; la teoria della natura umana secondo Fromm, in cui vengono concettualizzati diversi bisogni dell'essere umano così come sono stati descritti nel libro del 1955 Psicanalisi della società contemporanea (il bisogno di essere in relazione, il bisogno di radicamento, il bisogno di un senso di identità, il bisogno di tra-scendenza, il bisogno di una cornice di riferimento e di un oggetto di devozione); implicazioni per la comprensione dei pazienti; le associazioni libere; il rapporto tra analista e paziente; l'importanza dei sogni; la situazione attuale della psicoanalisi e il suo futuro.

A lecture given by Erich Fromm on May 28, 1957, at The New School for Social Research of New York is translated here in Italian for the first time. This lecture was the last in a series about the main concepts of Freud's psychoanalysis (most of these lectures were not recorded, while this one was recorded and transcribed). Fromm discusses the following topics: Freud's physiological concept of sexuality and the biological concept of sexuality suggested by Fromm; the role of masculinity and femininity; the Freudian concept of the libido; Fromm's theory of human nature, in which he conceptualizes various needs as described in his 1955 book The Sane Society (the need for relatedness, the need for rootedness, the need for a sense of identity, the need for transcendence, the need for a frame of orientation and an object of devotion); impacts for the understanding of patients; Freud's technique of free association; the relationship between the analyst and the patient; the importance of dreams; the present situation in psychoanalysis and its future.

Erich Fromm sees right to the heart of our contradictory needs for community and for freedom like no other writer before or since. In Fear of Freedom, Fromm warns that the price of community is indeed high, and it is the individual who pays. Fascism and authoritarianism may seem like receding shadows for some, but are cruel realities for many. Erich Fromm leaves a valuable and original legacy to his readers - a vastly increased understanding of the human character in relation to society. At the beginning of the 21st century, it is more important than ever to be aware of his powerful message. Listen, and take heed.

In this contribution, presented at the Fourth International Congress on Mental Health organized in Mexico City on December 11-19, 1951, and here translated in Italian for the first time, the issue of mental health conceived as passive adaptation to society is critically discussed. Human nature has unique and stable foundations that can be suffocated by the rules of a community that does not respect them; this process can produce either manifest psychological disorders or a latent, unconscious disturbance that manifests itself as a rigid conformism to the rules of society.

The problem of the relations between psychoanalysis and sociology, has two sides. The first is the application of psychoanalysis to sociology, the second that of sociology to psychoanalysis. This chapter attempts to make a few fundamental remarks about the principles which seem to apply to the scientific treatment of psychoanalytic-sociological problems. What psychoanalysis can bring to sociology is the knowledge—though still imperfect—of the human psychic apparatus, which is a determinant of social development alongside economic, and financial factors, and deserves no less consideration than the other factors. Psychoanalysis interprets the development of individuals precisely in terms of their relationship to their closest and most intimate surroundings. Psychoanalysis, which interprets the human being as a socialized being, and the psychic apparatus as essentially developed and determined through the relationship of the individual to society, must consider it a duty to participate in the investigation of sociological problems to the extent the human being or his/her psyche plays any part at all.

The paper has two parts, the first by Nick Braune and the second by Joan Braune. The first part explores Erich Fromm's pamphlet, Let Man Prevail: A Socialist Manifesto and Program, written for the Socialist Party-Social Democratic Federation (SP-SDF) in 1960. Nick Braune refutes claims that Fromm was a lightweight "popularizer," instead presenting Fromm as a science-minded, clear-headed socialist humanist, organizer, and philosopher.

“On the Relativity of Conceptualization” maybe was written in 1975 in connection with To Have Or to Be? as an „Appendix I” to a planned book particularly about Meister Eckhart and Karl Marx and religious concepts. The book was never realized. Other parts were published posthumeously (cf. E. Fromm, 1994e [1974-78] and E. Fromm, 1992s [1974]). First publication in: Fromm Forum (English version) No. 16 (2012), Tuebingen (Selbstverlag) 2012. Copyright © 1975 by Erich Fromm; Copyright © 2012 by The Literary Estate of Erich Fromm, c/o Rainer Funk, Ursrainer Ring 24, D-72076 Tuebingen, E-Mail: fromm-estate[atsymbol]fromm-online.com.

Here the influential psychologist Erich Fromm recalls his creative association with the mature Suzuki, illustrating the many interactions that were taking place between Japan, North America and Europe in the 1960s.