Dr. Wilhelm Reich, M.D.

By
Ali Lochhead
– May 9, 2009Posted in: Psychology, Science

Wilhelm Reich had a bizarre and deeply traumatic childhood.

He was born into a wealthy Jewish family, in 1897, in the region now known as Ukraine. He grew up on a large farm, his first language was German and young Wilhelm wasn’t allowed to play with Jewish children.

His father was said to be a brutal character, who beat him, whilst his mother had a soft nature and was naturally tactile with her young son.

The farmland childhood setting provided a backdrop which stimulated young Wilhelm’s interest in biology and natural science, including reproduction. He wanted to know where babies came from as young as three. On the farm, he said, the “natural life functions” were never hidden from him.

He also said he witnessed the family’s maid making love with her boyfriend. He said at the tender age of four years old, there were no secrets about sex for him. By the time he was four and a half he reportedly had a sexual fling with his brother’s nurse. He got into bed with her when his brother was sleeping, he said he reached for her genitals and she didn’t object, so he did the best he could. Reich reportedly lost his virginity at the age of eleven with the family cook.

Until he was thirteen years old Reich was educated at home by tutors and had an isolated existence. He harboured an anger towards his mother for failing to intervene and protect him from his fathers beatings, so presumably to to revenge her, when he was twelve, he told his father she was having an affair with  one of his tutors, who lived with them. Her reaction was to attempt suicide.

His father, who was an intensely jealous man, suspected his wife was having further affairs and now beat her as well as their son.

When Wilhelm was fourteen years old his mother was successful in her suicide bid. Her death was particularly gruesome as she drank a household cleaning fluid which meant she was in great pain for days before she passed away.

Supposedly writing about a patient, Reich later spoke of his mother’s death, saying the “Joy of life (was) shattered, torn apart from my inmost being for the rest of my life.”

His tutor was sent away. Wilhelm now had no mother, no teacher and the burden of an enormous sense of guilt.

He was sent to a German all boys school, where he excelled at natural sciences, as well as Latin and Greek.

By the time he was fifteen Reich was occasionally visiting brothels. He said he never kissed women’s breasts, saying, “That will be only when I find someone I can truly love.” He saw the mother symbolized in breasts. He spoke of his yearning for his mother and her love. This longing possibly accounts for his sexual obsessions.

Reich’s father didn’t cope well with the death of his wife either. After her suicide he was a broken man. When Wilhelm was seventeen his father went fishing, standing for hours in a cold pond. He caught pneumonia and then tuberculous. He died. It was 1914.

Wilhelm and his younger brother Robert regarded it as an attempt to commit slow suicide.

Although the father had gone to the effort of taking out an insurance policy beforehand, his plan didn’t work, as no money was paid out to the boys. Wilhelm was left to manage the farm, as well as his studies. But in the same year the first World War broke out. Reich had to flee his home. He lost everything. He later wrote, “I never saw either my homeland or my possessions again. Of a well-to-do past, nothing was left.” (Passion of Youth).

He joined the Austrian Army. He was at the Italian front three times. He said he experienced  “The war as a machine.” When the war finally ended, in 1918, Reich entered the Medical School at the University of Vienna.

Perhaps because of his tragic childhood experiences and his bizarre encounters with sex at such a tender age Reich was acutely aware of the significance of sexuality. He said, “It is sexual energy which governs the structure of human feeling and thinking. (The Sexual Revolution.)

Reich studied under Sigmund Freud, who shared the same interest in sexuality and coined the phrase libido. Reich saw libido as a physical, biological energy which could possibly be measured. Where the expression of libido is linked to sexuality and emotions.

This became the basis for Reich’s orgasm theory. I’ve written in some depth about this, and Reich’s relationship with Freud, in another post, “The Orgasm Theory and Orgone.”

In a nutshell, my understanding, is Reich was basically saying, is there are two types of orgasm. The first doesn’t even count as an orgasm, according to Reich. It’s just the  physical act of ejaculation. The sex organs can be stimulated physically where there is no Love on either side and ejaculation (release) will occur. (I use the phrase ejaculation to symbolise both male and female sexual release. While I am aware both men and women experience ejaculation, I am also aware female ejaculation is only one aspect of the female orgastic experience. And according to stats. is only experienced by a minority of women.) Reich said, this sexual experience is limited to the loins and is not felt throughout the body. It may be satisfying in the short term, but afterwards the ultimate experience is lacking. The person feels empty. Dissatisfied. Women often end up feeling guilty. Reich said, “Instead of being soft and gentle the sexual experience sex becomes hard and brutal.” (I wonder if this is what he experienced during his visits to brothels, where he refused to kiss the woman’s breasts?) Reich believed this experience, (which he called orgastic impotency,) leads to physical and psychological problems. And it stems from psychological problems, embodied physically.

On the other hand, there is what Reich called orgastic potency. He defined this as the ability to loose ourselves completely in sexual ecstasy, without inhibition. Before orgasm both the man and the woman experience involuntary muscular movements. During orgasm, a deep and delicious current runs up and down the body. Reich defined an orgasm as complete and full release of emotional and sexual excitation. Where the emotion is Love. Reich saw Love as an essential part of orgastic potency.  The ability to give Love fully and receive Love fully.

Reich saw orgastic potency, not only as the ultimate measure of well being. He believed this is a primal human instinct. And Reich believed the function of the full orgasm is healing. Reich believed full orgasm is a natural function which maintains a sense of  balance and harmony. Both in the body. And within. The way Reich viewed orgastic potency, this  is the natural biological state. And the core, the centre, of the human psyche. Where Love and sexuality are expressed both physically, through the body, sexually, biologically. And energetically, through the emotions.

Reich believed when this natural equilibrium is disturbed it is a sign that neurosis is present. And, equally, that disturbance of this natural flow of Loving, sexual energy leads to neurosis, which he equated to a blockage of this energy. So, by dissolving the blockage one regains optimum health and well being, the natural biological and energetic (emotional) state.

Reich was the founder of Somatic Psychology. Being the first person who equated psychology with the body. (Others were focusing entirely on the mind.) .

Because of his deep understanding of orgasmic energy Reich spent a lot of his time and money on sex education. He taught working class people about the importance of sexuality in their lives. And developed theraputic techniques to help people overcome their resistance, to allow them to Love fully. It seems there was a demand for these teachings. Reich had six clinics in Vienna where people came for help and advice once or twice a week.

Reich worked with the socialist and communist parties to reach a wider audience. As well as sex education he promoted birth control, divorce rights and better housing. He said he had about 50,000 people in his organisation in Berlin in the first year.

But Reich was massively ahead of his time. Bear in mind this is the early 1930′s we are talking about. Society was not ready to discuss orgasm. Many women simply didn’t experience orgasm. In fact even as late as the 1970′s it was still being claimed the female orgasm didn’t exist, it was a myth made up by the media. Even today, 2009, some people will have still trouble with such frank discussion of orgasm, and the function and purpose of orgasm.

Reich and Freud agreed neurosis stems from a disturbance in sexual energy. They both agreed this disturbance arises from the natural feelings one has and the feelings one feels one ought to have. They disagreed on how to resolve this conflict. Freud felt society should take precedence and the individual should moderate their expression of sexual energy to fit in with the cultural climate. Reich believed the sate of natural well being should come first. And society should moderate and structure itself in a way which allows humans to fully express this Loving sexual energy.

Reich was also politically motivated. (Evident in his promotion of divorce rights, birth control, better housing.) And he openly opposed the rise of the Nazi party. This was not the done thing among his peer group and faced opposition on both fronts. The Communist party had a hard time accepting his ideas about sex and sexuality. He was denounced from the Communist party. The scientific community, at that time, would not tolerate the open discussion of orgasm and the psychoanalytic community had a hard time accepting his views about the rise of Nazism. He was expelled from Berlin Psychoanalytic Association. (His books, “The Function of the Orgasm”, “The Sexual Revolution”, and “The Mass Psychology of Fascism” discussed content which even today, can still be considered controversial.)

Reich said these events Reich were “Catastrophes which threatened my personal, professional and social existence.” When asked what he would do. He said, “Just carry on.” He had to flee Germany when Hitler came to power. He went to Denmark. And then Norway. In 1935 he withdrew from all psychoanalytic organisations. He was increasingly ostracised because of beliefs.

In Oslo, Reich continued to teach, develop his therapeutic techniques, and expand his concept of libido. In laboratory experiments he confirmed the existence of a physical biological energy expressed through the emotions. He demonstrated a charge at the skin’s surface of his patients which directly related to feelings of pleasure and anxiety. This  biological energy  moved in a slow, wave-length fashion. (Electromagnetic energy moves much faster.) Reich discovered a similar energy  process exists in blood, grass and sand and foodstuffs. Through his experiments he was able to demonstrate this energy could kill bacteria and cancer cells. Reich called this energy “orgone.”

When Reich published his findings he was viciously attacked in the Norwegian press by both the scientific and psychiatric communities. He decided he might be better received in America. He emigrated to the States, sailing on the last ship to leave Norway before the outbreak of World War II.

Once he’d settled in America Reich published his books in English, trained American doctors and continued his research into orgone energy. He saw orgone as a vital life force, similar to the Hindu concept of prana. Because he found orgone radiation permeates all living substances. He was aware humanity has talked about such an energy from ancient times. His mission was to find ways to isolate it, collect it and harness it’s power. He felt he had achieved this. He constructed what he called orgone energy accumulators. These were boxes which attracted and accumulated orgone energy. He used this energy to treat cancer mice and later cancer patients. And he discovered a motor force in orgone energy from the atmoshere. He used this energy to power a small motor.

By now, 8 years after he landed in the USA, Reich’s work was attracting a lot of attention. His views were still considered controversial by many. Some in the psychoanalytic world thought he was actually mentally ill. Or had just somehow gone astray. But his ultimate demise was prompted by a freelance journalist called Mildred Brady. She wrote an article claiming Reich’s work was perverted, basically. She said he rented out his accumulators to patients “who presumably derived orgastic potency from it.” She implied he was a danger to the public. As a result of this the FDA mounted a ten year campaign to destroy Reich’s work. FDA agents  interviewed patients, doctors, and students of Reich’s, but there were no complaints against him or his practices.

He continued with his research. Now he was working on ways of collecting orgone and shooting it into the atmosphere to create and dissipate clouds. In his most significant experiment in 1953 it appeared he had affected weather patterns, bringing on rain during a drought.

The following year the FDA filed a complaint to the Federal Court declaring orgone energy did not exist and asking the court to ban Reich’s work.

Reich felt it was against the interests of science to appear in court and wrote to the Judge, who did not accept his argument, and the injunction was issued.

Reich continued with his work. When he was in the desert doing more experiments with his cloudbuster a student moved a load of his books and equipment from Maine to New York. This was a direct violation of the injunction. As a result both men were charged and Reich was given a two year jail sentence . He appealed this. None-the-less the government destroyed his orgone energy accumulators. The FDA supervised the burning of thousands of Reich’s books. Reich’s appeal was unsuccessful and he died in jail.

An abstract impression of Reich's work. From Christiaantonnis on YouTube. Click on image to view

An abstract impression of Reich's work. From Christiaantonnis on YouTube. Click on image to view

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