Fromm presented his break as abandoning libido theory but never psychoanalysis itself.

Evidence

This did not, of course, mean that he had abandoned all aspects of his earlier position. “I have never left Freudianism,” he was later to write, … At any rate, I never gave up psychoanalysis. I have never wanted to form a school of my own. I was removed by the Interna tional Psychoanalytic Association from membership in this Association to which I had belonged, and I am still 11971) a member of the Washington Psychoanalytic Association, which is Freudian. I have always criticized the Freudian orthodoxy and the bureaucratic methods of the Freudian international organization, but my whole theoretical work is based on what I consider Freud’s most important findings, with the exception of the metapsychology.” — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 322

Categorization

• QUESTION: Fromm’s claim that the libido theory was not among Freud’s ‘most important findings’ is striking — worth comparing with how Adorno and Horkheimer treated that same theory.