INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL ORIGINS OF NEUROSIS*
ERICH FROMM
New York City Every discovery which has been made and
HE HISTORY of science is a history of
erroneous statements. Yet these will be made has a long history in which the
erroneous statements which mark the truth contained in it finds a less and less
progress of thought have a particular qual- veiled and distorted expression and apity: they are productive. And they are not proaches more and more adequate formujust errors either; they are statements, the lations. The development of scientific
truth of which is veiled by misconceptions, thought is not one in which old statements
is clothed in erroneous and inadequate con- are discarded as false and replaced by new
cepts. They are rational visions which con- and correct ones; it is rather a process of
tain the seed of truth, which matures and continuous reinterpretation of older stateblossoms in the continuous effort of man- ments, by which their true kernel is freed
kind to arrive at objectively valid knowledge from distorting elements. The great
about man and nature. Many profound in- pioneers of thought, of whom Freud is one.
sights about man and society have first express idesis which determine the progress
found expression in myths and fairy tales, of scientific thinking for centuries. Often the
others in metaphysical speculations, others workers in the field orient themselves in one
in scientific assumptions which have proven of two ways: they fail to differentiate beto be incorrect after one or two generations. tween the essential and the accidental, and
It is not difficult to see why the evolution defend rigidly the whole system of the ma>of human thought proceeds in this way. The ter, thus blocking the process of reinterpreaim of any thinking human being is to tation and clarification; or they make the
arrive at the whole truth, to understand the same mistake of failing to differentiate betotality of phenomena which puzzle him. He tween the essential and the accidental, and
has only one short life and must want to equally rigidly fight against the old theories
have a vision of the truth about the world and try to replace them by new ones of
in this short span of time. But he could only their own. In both the orthodox and the reunderstand this totality if his life span were bellious rigidity, the constructive evolution
identical with that of the human race. It is of the vision of the master is blocked. The
only in the process of historical evolution real task, however, is to reinterpret, to sift
that man develops techniques of observation, out, to recognize that certain insights had
gains greater objectivity as an observer, col- to be phrased and understood in erroneous
lects new data which are necessary to know concepts because of the limitations oi
if one is to understand the whole. There is thought peculiar to the historical phase in
a gap, then, between what even the greatest which they were first formulated. We ma\
genius can visualize as the truth, and the feel then that we sometimes understand the
limitations of knowledge which depend on author better than he understood himself.
the accident of the historical phase he hap- but that we are only capable of doing so by
pens to live in. Since we cannot live in sus- the guiding light of his original vision.
pense, we try to fill out this gap with the
This general principle, that the way 0!
material of knowledge at hand, even if this scientific progress is constructive reintcrprtmaterial is lacking in the validity which the tation of basic visions rather than repeating
essence of the vision may have.
or discarding them, certainly holds true oFreud's theoretical formulations. There i* Presented to the annual meeting of the Eastern
scarcely a discovery of Freud which doe? no
Sociological Society, Columbia University, April
contain fundamental truths and yet ^vhlch
22-23, 1944. T 380 ORIGINS OF NEUROSIS
does not lend itself to an organic development beyond the concepts in which it has
been clothed.
A case in point is Freud's theory on the
origin of neurosis. I think we still know
little of what constitutes a neurosis and less
what its origins are. Many physiological,
anthropological and sociological data will
have to be collected before we can hope to
arrive at any conclusive answer. What I
shall do is to use Freud's view on the origin
of neurosis as an illustration of the general
principle which I have discussed, that reinterpretation is the constructive method of
scientific progress.
Freud states that the Oedipus complex is
justifiably regarded as the kernel of neurosis.
I believe that this statement is the most
fundamental one which can be made about
the origin of neurosis, but I think it needs to
be qualified and reinterpreted in a frame of
reference different from the one Freud had
in mind. What Freud meant in his statement was this: because of the sexual desire
the little boy, let us say, has for his mother,
he becomes the rival of his father, and the
neurotic development consists in the failure
to cope with the anxiety rooted in this
rivalry in a satisfactory \vay. I believe that
Freud touched upon the' most elementary
root of neurosis in pointing to the conflict between the child and parental authority and
the failure of the child to solve this conflict
satisfactorily. But I do not think that this
conflict is brouglrt about essentially by the
sexual rivalry, but that it results from the
child's reaction to the pressure of parental
authority, the child's fear of it and submission to it. Before I go on elaborating this
point, I should like to differentiate between
^\vo kinds of authority. One is objectivei
based on the competency of the person in
authority to function properly with respect
^0 the task of guidance he has to perform.
^is kind of authority may be called ral authority. In contrast to it is what
ay be called irrnf^nnnl authority, which is
on the power whFch the authority has
those subjected to it and on the fear
awe with which the latter reciprocate,
happens that in most cultures human 381 relationships are greatly determined by irrational authority. People function in our society as in most societies, on the record of
history, by becoming adjusted to their social
role at the price of giving up part of their
own will, their (Originality and spontaneity.
While every human being represents the
whole of mankind with all its potentialities,
any functioning society is and has to be
primarily interested in its self-preservation.
The particular ways in which a society functions are determined by a number of objective economic and political factors, which
are given at any point of historical development. Societies have to operate within the
possibilities and limitations of their particular historical situation. In order that any
society may function well, its members must
acquire the kind of character which makes
them want to act in the way they have to
act as members of the society or of a special
class within it. They have to desire what
objectively is necessary for them to do.
Outer force is to be replaced by inner com
pulsion^ and by the particular kind of human
energy which is channeled into character
traits. As long as mankind has not attained
a state of organization in which the interest
of the individual and that of society are
identical, the aims of society have to be
attained at a greater or lesser expense of
the freedom and spontaneity of the individual. This aim is performed by the process
of child training and education. While education aims at the development of a child's
potentialities, it has also the function of
reducing his independence and freedom to
the level necessary for the existence of that
particular society. Although societies differ
•With regard to the extent to which the child
must be impressed by irrational authority,
it is always part of the function of child
training to have this happen.
The child does not meet society directly
at first; it meets it through the medium of
his parents, who in their character structure and methods of education represent the
social structure, who are the psychological
agency of society, as it were. What, then,
happens to the child in relationship to his
parents? It meets through them the kind of AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
authority which is prevailing in the particular society in which it lives, and this
kind of authority tends to break his will,
his spontaneity, his indep>endence. But man
is not bom to be broken, so the child fights
against the authority represented by hWparents; he fights for his freedom not only
from pressure but also for his freedom to
be himself, a full-Hedged human being, not
an automaton. Some children are more successful than others; most of them are defeated to some extent in their fight for
freedom. The ways in which this defeat is
brought about are manifold, but whatever
they are, the scarfe left from this defeat in
the child's fight Against irrational autiiority
are to be found at the bottom of every
neurosis. THis sCar is represented in a syndrome the most important features of which
are: the weakening or paralysis of the person's originality and spontaneity; the weakening of the self and the substitution of a
pseudo-self, in which the feeling of "I am"
is dulled and replaced by the experience of
self as the sum total of expectations others
have about me; the substitution of autonomy
by heteronomy; the fogginess, or, to use
Dr. Sullivan's term, the parataxic quality
of all interpersonal experiences. use it, although unintentionally, as a means
to make the child submit. There is nothing
more effective in breaking any person than
to ^ve him Ihe conviciron of wTdkedness.
The more guTTiy one feels, tlie more easily
one submits because the authority has proven
its own power by its right to accuse. What
appears as a feeling of guilt, then, is actually
the fear of displeasing those of whom one
is afraid. This feeling of guilt is the only
one which most p>eople experience as a moral
problem, while the genuine moral problem,
that of realizing one's potentialities, is lost
from sight. Guilt is reduced to disobedience
and is not felt as that which it is in a
genuine moral sense, self-mutilation.
To sum up this point, it may be said
;that it is the defeat in the fight against
authorit5^) wKich constitutes the kernel of the
neurons, and that not the incestuous wish
of the child but the stigma connected with
sex is one among the factors in breaking
down his will. Freud painted a picture of
the necessarily tragic outcome of a child's
most fundamental wishes: his incestuous
wishes are bound to fail and force the child
into some sort of submission. Have we not
reason to assume that this hypothesis expresses in a veiled way Freud's profound
My suggestion that the Oedipus complex pessimism with regard to any basic imbe interpreted not as a result of the child's provement in man's fate and his belief in
sexual rivalry with the parent of the same the indispensable nature of irrational ausex but as the child's fight with irrational thority? Yet this attitude is only one part
authority represented by the parents does of Freud. He is at the same time the man
not imply, however, that the sexual factor who said that *'from the time of puberty
does not play a significant role, but the onward the human individual must devote
emphasis is not on the incestuous wishes of himself to fhe great task of freeing himself
the child and their necessarily tragic out- from the parents"; he is the man who decome, its original sin, but on the p>arents' vised a therapeutic method the aim of which
prohibitive influence on the normal sexual is the independence and freedom of the indiactivifjr of the child. The child's physical vidual.
functions—first those of defecation, then
However, defeat in the fight for freedom
his sexual desires and activities—are weighed does not always lead to neurosis. As a matter
down by moral considerations. The child of fact, if this were the case, we would have
is made to feel guilty with regard to these to consider the vast majority of people as
functions, and since the sexual urge is pres- neurotics. What then are the specific conent in every person from childhood on, it ditions which make for tbe neurotic outcome
becomes a constant source of the feeling of of this defeat? There are some conditions
guilt. What is the function of this feeling which I can onljf mention: for example, one
of guilt? It serves to break the child's will child may be hrbken more thoroughly than
and to drive it into submission. The parents others, and the conflict between his anxiety ORIGINS OF NEUROSIS
and his basic human desires may, therefore,
be sharper and more unbearable; or the
child may have developed a sense of freedom
and originality which is greater than that
of the average person, and the defeat may
thus be more unacceptable. But instead
of enumerating other conditions which make
for neurosis, I prefer to reverse the question and ask what the conditions are which
are responsible for the fact that so many
people do not become neurotic in ^ i t e of
the failure in their personal fight for freedom. It seems to be useful at this point
to differentiate between two concepts: that
of defect and that of neurosis. If a person
fails to attain freedom, spontaneity, a genuine experience of self, he may be considered
to have a severe djefect, provided we assume
that freedom and spontaneity are the objective goals to be attained by every human
being. If such a goal is not attained by the
majority of members of any given society,
we deal with the phenomenon of socially
paiterried defect. The individual shares it
with many others; he is not aware of it as
a defect, and his security is not threatened
by the experience of being different, of being an outcast, as it were. What he may
have lost in richness and in a genuine feeling
of happiness is made up by the security of
fitting in with the rest of mankind—as he
knows them. As a matter of fact, his very
Mtci may have been raised to a virtue
by his culture and thus give him an enhanced
feeling of achievement. An illustration is
the^ feeling of guilt and anxiety which Calvm's doctrines aroused in men. It may be
said that the person who is overwhelmed by
a feeling of his own powerlessness and unworthiness, by the unceasing doubt of
whether he ts saved or condemned to eternal
punishment, who is hardly capable of any
genuine joy and has made himself into the
^og of a machine which he has to serve, has
a severe defect. Yet this very defect was
culturally patterned; it was looked upon
as particularly valuable, and the individual
^as thus protected from the neurosis which
e would have acquired in a culture where
JQ€ defect would give him a feeling of profound inadequacy and isolation. 383 Spinoza has formulated the problem of
the socially patterned defect very deariy.
He says: "Many people are seized by one
and the same affect with great consistency.
All his senses are so strongly affected by
one object that he believes this object to
be present even if it is not. If this happens while the person is awake, the person
is believed to be insane. . . . But if the
greedy person thinks only of money and
possessions, the ambitious one only of fame,
one does not think of them as being insane,
but only as annoying; generally one has
contempt for them. But factually greediness,
ambition, and so forth are forms of insanity, although usually one does not think
of them as 'ilkess.'" These words were
written a few hundred years ago; they still
hold true, although the defect has been
culturally patterned to such an extent now
that it is not generally thought any more
to be annoying or contemptuous. Today we
come across a person and find that he acts
and feels like an automaton; that he never
experiences anything which is really his;
that he experiences himself entirely as the
person he thinks he is supposed to be; that
smiles have replaced laughter, meaningless
chatter replaced communicative speech;
dulled despair has taken the place of genuine
pain. Two statements can be made about this
person. One is that he suffers from a defect
of spontaneity and" individuality which may
seem incurable. At the same time it may
be said that he does not differ essentially
from thousands of others who are in the
same position. With most of them the cultural pattern provided for the defect saves
them from the outbreak of neurosis. With
some the cultural pattern does not function,
and the defect appears as a severe neurosis.
The fact that in these cases the cultural
pattern does not suffice to prevent the outbreak of a manifest neurosis is in most
cases to be explained by the particular
severity and structure of the individual conflicts. I shall not go into this any further.
The point I want to stress is the necessity
to proceed from the problem of the origins
of neurosis to the problem of the origins of.
the culturally patterned defect; to the prob- 384 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW lem of the pathology of normalcy.
This aim implies that the psychoanalyst
is not only concerned with the readjustment
of the neurotic individual to his given society. His task must be also to recognize
that the individual's ideal of normalcy may
contradict the aim of the full realization
of himself as a human being. It is the
belief of the progressive forces in society that such a realization is possible, that the
interest of society «tnd t)f the individual need
not be antagonistic forever. Psychoanalysis
if it does not lose sight of the human problem, has an important contribution to make
in this direction. This contribution by which
it transcends the field of a medical specialty
was part of the vision which Freud had.

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