Meaning of the Book The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm

What is the book The art of Loving from Erich Fromm:

The book The art of Loving Erich Fromm (Frankfurt, Germany 1900 - Muralto, Switzerland 1980) theorizes as a psychoanalyst, humanist and sociologist the faculty of love as an art. And all art needs an understanding of the theoretical part in order to apply it successfully in practice.

The book The Art of Loving written in 1956 describes the theory of love. For this, it is divided into the following 4 chapters:

• Chapter 1: Is love an art?: proposes a logical argument about why love is an art.
• Episode 2: The theory of love: it is divided into 3 sub-chapters: Love, the answer to the problem of human existence; The love between parents and children; Love objects.
• Chapter 3: Love and its Disintegration in Contemporary Western Society: Critique of Structure social socialization of Western civilization and that the spirit that results from it hinders the development of love.
• Chapter 4: The practice of love
• Biographical Epilogue: written by the German assistant Rainer Funk who concludes that the art of loving is the
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  "True knowledge of that other to be able to respect and feel recognition and understanding."

Book summary The art of Loving by Erich Fromm

Erich Fromm in his book The art of Loving He says that the first difficulty encountered when it comes to loving is the false and wrong premises about love and compares them with what it should be:

• It is believed that love is measured in 'being loved' and not in own capacity to love.
• Love is believed to be an object and is a faculty.
• Love is confused with the initial experience of "falling in love."

Erich Fromm presents in "The theory of love" the concept of separateness or state of separation. This initial state of separation is the awareness of our individuality, the perception that we do not belong around us. This awareness of our individuality would be the true explanation of the myth of the original sin of the Christian faith and the origin of our need to love.

Separation causes anguish, as Fromm says: "Of their helplessness in the face of the forces of nature and society, all this makes of their separate and disunited existence an unbearable prison."

The art of Loving divide love into two types that should not be confused. They are:

• The love as an immature solution or ‘symbiotic union’ whose extreme forms are represented in submission or sadism for the passive form and domination or sadism in the active form and,
• The love as a mature solution to the problem of existence which means a union without losing our own individuality. According to the art of loving, love would be a paradox of two beings that become one but remain two.

"Immature love says, 'I love you because I need you,' while mature love says, 'I need you because I love you.'

In "The Practice of Love" Erich Fromm says that no one can teach us the practice of love. It affirms that the steps towards the goal of loving can only be taken alone. But it gives the general requirements for the art of loving (and for any art) being them:

• Discipline: the art of loving must be practiced every day and consciously.
• Concentration: you must be focused on the instrument (in this case the other person).
• Patience: knowing that it will take time before learning.
• Concern to master the art: wanting to learn.

"The person himself becomes an instrument in the practice of art."The art of Loving by Erich Fromm