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"archival series"

The Art of Listening

“and, actually, every human being is the hero of a drama”

The Art of Listening

Fromm has good ideas. I’m not a Fromm scholar in particular, but having read some of his previous works like The Escape from Freedom and The Art of Loving, made me seek out some more of his works, which ended up being The Art of Listening.

The book itself is a collection of talks and seminars Fromm did later on in his career, which arose from his own reflections on psychoanalysis and the insights he gathered from practicing the craft.

What Fromm reflects upon deeply as a psychoanalyst—and the “field” as a whole—is the root cause of “neurosis,” or in modern terms, “mental illness.”

The nugget of wisdom I found interesting was the discussion of structural causes of neurosis. Using the French term Mal du siècle (sickness of the century), Fromm asks if we are all sick.

He goes on to ask if the structure and ways of “being” in modern society cause neurosis in everyone. Is the use of the term “illness,” then, even valid?

These are good questions to ask because, as we live our day-to-day without questioning the ways we relate to each other and the world, we further deepen our current modes as the only ones with no alternative. As Fromm highlighted, such is the power of norms, and no one is sick if everyone is sick.