Reich & the Frankfurt School

[James Rovira]

That's a good question -- the quotation seems exactly backwards.  I 
remember Martin Jay describing a falling out between Fromm and H and A 
in _The Dialectical Imagination_, but I don't remember the details 
offhand.  It could be that a "smooth" transition between individual 
psychology and social theory would undermine any possible dialectical 
relationship between the two.  A tension needs to be maintained, rather 
than seeing one collapsed into the other.

Jim  

Ralph Dumain wrote:

> Wiggershaus has only a few references on Wilhelm Reich, mostly in 
> connection with Fromm, who incorporated the concept of character 
> structure into his social psychology.  There is one curious reference 
> to Adorno, though (p. 159).  Adorno was working on some project (some 
> time between 1933 and 1935, it seems): Wiggerstrauss says Adorno 
> "would begin with Reich, because Reich, unlike Fromm, maintained that 
> individual psychology could not be smoothly transferred to social 
> theory."  What's this all about?
>
>