Frieda Fromm-Reichmann's Life

I have been reading and re-reading Erich Fromm again for more than a year now, after having first read some of his works in the 1990s. Some of my notes from my ongoing reading of him may be found here. 

Quite all of a sudden last week I realized I knew nothing of his first wife, and so I ordered, and have happily begun, Gail Hornstein's biography, To Redeem One Person is to Redeem the World: the Life of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann.

Normally I would wait until I have finished a book to comment on it--and I shall be writing about this book upon its completion--but it is such a lovely and even thrilling book that I wanted to recommend it straightaway. Hornstein's elegant introduction alone is worthy of her subject, who rapidly emerges as a fascinating figure indeed. 

In particular, Fromm-Reichmann was able to restore to health several schizophrenics, whom orthodox Freudian analysis at the time thought untreatable, least of all by unmodified analytic technique. (Even today, alas, some people, far from Freud, nonetheless also think schizophrenics largely untreatable by any therapeutic technique except perhaps heavy use of psychotropics.) In this there are parallels between some of Fromm-Reichmann's unusual clinical successes and those of others I have read such as R.D. Laing and more recently Christopher Bollas, especially his When the Sun Bursts: the Enigma of Schizophrenia. Such stores always fascinate and inspire me, serving as a reminder not to assume in advance that anyone is beyond reach.  

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