From the History of Orgonomy
Why is Reich Never Mentioned? Mentioned?** by R.D. Laing** It is as though he ha d never never existed. existed. Few medical students, if any, will have heard his name so much as mentioned in medical school, school, an d w ill never come come a cro cross ss him in their textbooks. textbooks. It is not tha t his views are less scientific scientific tha n many of those taught today — which are no more scientific tha n th os osee clinic clinical al dogmas of even even 50 years a go that we a re now pleased t o ridicule ridicule or patronize. Reich’ss proposals Reich’ proposals as to th e social influences influences on on t he functions of of sympath etic etic,, para sympathetic and ce centra ntra l nervous nervous ar e systems, a nd on our biochemistry, biochemistry, testa ble, but a re never testa tested, as w ith much else that is really importa importa nt –– Lemert’s Lemert’s work on t he conspirat conspirat orial na ture of th e social social field of people people who think there is a conspiracy going on; Scheff’s work on ad mission proc procedures edures to menta l hospita hospita ls; J ourard’s work on bodily co conta nta ct, for insta nce. Exciting to “laym en”, perhaps noticed notice d by professiona professiona ls, seldom seldom pursued. If one insists on referring t o them, one is becoming becoming t ireso iresome. me. Not one perso person, n, as far a s I know, in any instit ution in this countr co untr y is d oing a single piece piece of research even to disconfirm an y of the deta iled findings or or hypothesis of the above gentlemen, including including Reich. P rofess rofessions ions instit instit utionalize ignorance, and t urn ignorance ignorance into a claim claim for status. Reic Reich h wa s arrested by the FBI as a susp suspec ected ted Nazi spy. He wa s actively actively persepersecuted while alive, and is conspiratorially ignored now he is dead. More ought ought t o be done on on the sociology sociology of of at tempts t o destroyy heretics destro heretics without a t race. How can w e tell when they ar e succe successful? ssful? Man y psychiatr ic textboo textbooks ks are lar gely conconcerned ce rned to screen screen out out informa tion tha t only adva nced students can be trust ed to know know a bout, when th ey, it is hoped, hoped, will be so brainwashed theoretically, or hooked to professional practices, tha t no one can do any thing a bout it (if (if we had m ore sta ff, more money, etc.) etc.) The textbook beco becomes mes a buria l groun d. Intellectual Intelle ctual ancestor ancestor worship. Seldo Seldom m read a fter a few y ears, but there are a lwa ys new ideas tha t a re dying or can can be kille killed d and burie buried. d. Reich ha s been been writ ten off profe professio ssiona na lly for for years. B ut –– someho somehow w or other other –– pat ients, perha perha ps, wh o must be as da ft a s him, keep keep on on read ing his books. books. Sud denly it is going going to be discov discovered ered that we ha ve known known all a lo long ng everything tha t is worthwhile to know know of wha t he sa id — the rest rest can easily be consigned co nsigned t o the convenient dust bins of psychotic ideas. The The true dustbins of history ar e the textboo textbooks. ks. Try reading t he * Th e f ol ol lo low i n g a r t i cl cl e a p pe pe a r ed ed in i n N ew Soc , Society iety Mar ch 28, 28, 1968 1968 under t he title “Libera tion by Orga sm.” * * R . D . L a i n g w a s a con t r ov ov er er s ia ia l B r i t is is h p sy sy ch ch ol ol og og i st st who pionee pioneered red the innovative and human e treatm ent of schizophrenics, and emphasized the social and family origins of the illness.
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textbooks of 30 textbooks 30 to 40 year s a go and co compar mpar e them w ith Reich’s Reich’s ve.. There is no a priori work at tha t time. Reic Reich h is still ali ve reason to suppose that what survives through history is the trut h. More likel likelyy w e have not much else to go on tha n the lies tha t th os osee who win the power game pass on. The tr ue story of Reich’s Reich’s split split w ith t he inner psychoana lytic circle circle is still a closely closely kept secret, and will now probably never be known known . Why? The dyna mics of of tha t group are likely to be as inst ructive as the theories tha t emerged from it. it. More tha n 50 per per cent cent killed themselves or or a llegedly went m ad , or or both. Ern est J ones' ones'ss offic official ial story is less less credible credible tha n ma ny fairy stories. Reich ha s penetra penetra ting insights into the European pat riar chal fam ily but, like G roddec roddeck, k, he seems to ha ve formed a primitive tra nsference to Freud, with out fully appreciating t he wh ole group scenar scenar io. Although Wilhelm Reich’s presence still hovers –– ridiculous, menacing, pitiful, a cc ccording ording t o projectio projection n –– wa lled off “outside” the orthodoxy of psychiatry and psychoanalysis, there seems to be a quiet reevaluation going on among the younger peopl peoplee of of all ages. Even his lat er work on on wha t he called biophysics biophysics can not be so glibly consigned consigned t o cranksville as it w as even ten years ago. The more I know at first hand of wha t Reich Reich w as t alking about, the more serio seriously usly I ta ke him. Reich Reic h began in t he twenties as a psyc psychoanalyst, hoanalyst, w ith a part icular interest in sexo sexology. logy. He wa s a distinguished member of Freud’s circle circle in Vienna Vienna . Gr ad ually his views t oo ook k shape out of his own clinical experience. experience. They ra n the follow follow ing course, co urse, as reco recounted unted by him. He formed the impression that al l his patients suffered from fro m a disturban ce of genitality. This was not alw ays ma nifested in obvious obvious frigidity frigidity or impotence, impotence, but alw ay s enta iled an incapacity for tota l orgasm wit h full gra tification. This was not obvious obvious because ma ny people did not (and do not) know know what total orgasm is, so they did not know what they were missing. Orga sm, as Reich Reich describe described d it, is a serpentine undula tion of of the whole body, body, a giving in, a surr ender, reaching a n a cme followed followed by co complete mplete dissolution dissolution of pre-orgasmic pre-orgasmic tension. It is genera ted by a free flow flow of bioelec bioelectric tric energy, an d is resisted by practically everyone to some extent by means of chronic tensions in the skeletal muscles. From hea d to foot, foot, according to Reich, we are all encased in a sort of muscle a r m o u r , t h a t i s our chara cter. Its ma in function function is is to avoid pleasure. It kills grat ific ificat at ion and life. We We have developed developed this lethal anti-gratification equipment in childhood, learning to keep a stiff upper lip, holding our head high, chin up, back arched, shoulders rounded, diaphragm rigid, pelvis dead, afr aid even to breat he freely, especially especially to expire. After some yea rs Reich ga ve up the t echniques of psychopsychoan alysis. He came to regar d the exclusiv exclusivee use of ta lking as
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“ The signs and symptoms of what Reich called the emotional plague are as evident as the signs of the bubonic plague would be... the plague is no respecter of professional boundaries... One of its symptoms is an inability to see that one suffers from it.” often a collusive way for both ana lyst an d patient t o remain tra pped in their cha ra cter armour. He moved to direct efforts to disarmour the person by various methods of relaxing the muscles. In doing this, the imprisoned serpent-power was mobilized –– sometimes, as he describes it, in ways that would frighten a nyone who did not ha ve real trust in th e basic forces of life. Ch ar acter ar mour maint ains in frozen preservat ion all thr ough life the original conflicts w hich occasioned its formation in th e first place. When loosened, the first impulses to be released ma y not look too nice. The biopath y of this stat e of affa irs leads directly to ma ny physical functional and structural ills, and the latter, especially cancer, gained increasing attention from him towards th e end of his life. The culmina tion for Reich of his life’s work wa s th e discovery of a t ype of biological a nd cosmic energy, a nd the investiga tion of its particular energy field. The best single introduction to Reich is Th e Fu nction of th e Or gasm , now in pa perback. * Whether or not one agrees or disagrees wit h this or tha t of Reich’s theory a nd pra ctice, it is inescapa ble tha t he w as a great clinician, w ith an unusually wide range. His account of his therapy with schizoid and schizophrenic patients will enlighten in some wa ys an yone involved in this enterprise. He understood the mess we are all in –– hysteric, obsessional, psychosomatic, homo normali s –– as very few ha ve done. Yet one will look through a h undred journals in th e Royal Society of Medicine wit hout coming across one ment ion of him. Why is he never mentioned? He a ssaults our narcissism in a lmost unforgivable wa ys. Freud wa s cool. Reich is uncool. He tells us tha t homo n o r m a l i s is a sort of bladder, often dried up, sometimes overtaken with convulsions, longing and terrified to burst, wh ether t hrough penetra tion from outside, or explosion from wit hin: terrified to live freely, which w ould be to love; with an insane fear of being destroyed and at the same t ime with a senseless readiness to die, to destroy w ha t he fears; fear ful of almost everything, most of all, himself; psychically turned inside out, persecuting righteously his persecutors outside himself, none other th an his own projections of evil. It is easy t o dismiss statements of this kind as w ild and untestable by the canons of science, which Reich claims for them. I do not think it is justified. The signs an d symptoms of what Reich called the endemic emotional plague are as evident a s the signs of the bubonic plague w ould be. The extent to which Reich is ignored cannot be explained ra tionally, a nd invites an explana tion along his own lines –– viz, the plague is no respecter of professiona l boundar ies, and psychiatrist s suffer from it a s much as a nyone else. One of its symptoms is an ina bility to see tha t one suffers from it. Some people do see it, but a re still subject to it. They a re liable to be d iagn osed a s schizophrenics. “T here must be a potent reason wh y th e schi zophr eni c is treated so cr uell y and the cru el homo normal is is honored so crazily al l over thi s Indeed. “Th e neuroti c and t he perv erse ar e to th e planet.”
schi zophr eni c, as far as th eir feeli ngs of li fe ar e concern ed, as th e m i ser l y shopkeeper i s to the big scale safe cr acker.” “A few cases of th e schi zoph r eni a, well un derstood in stead of ‘shocked’, woul d, in th e long r un , save society coun tl ess mi ll ions of dollars.” “I t seems too mu ch to expect such foresigh t. I t i s known that mental i nstitu ti ons are, in r eali ty, jail s for psychotics, with li ttl e medical care, scarce fun ds, and i n most of t hem, n o r esear ch at all .” Writt en in 1948, true toda y, as the more enlightened and honest superintendents, sta ff, and patients of menta l hospita ls continu e to testify. [And st ill true in 1993! — Editors] Reich asks us to imagine a parliamentary debate on puberty, to suggest to us how d ivorced from the fa cts of life politicians ar e, who at th e same time ma ke it their business to regiment even our biochemistry . He would not have been disappointed in the debates in the Commons and Lords last year on th e new da ngerous-drug legislation. Political a nd w ar correspondents ar e possibly pretty t ough, but th ey still seem to get frightened when a general or leading politician seems actua lly to believe his own nonsense. Then wa tch out. We have got used to the idea that the majority of people will believe wha t they ar e told. The danger is tha t the politician might stop being cynical. Freud felt there was nothing to be done about it. Our civilization w as founded on repression, a nd societa l repression wa s interlocked in alliance with part of the biological constit ution of each of us. Reich wa s more optimistic. He does not explain w hy ma n ha s turned a gainst himself in the first place, but his w ork conta ins rich detailed documenta tion of h ow h e has, and he did seem to be able to disarm a number of very heavily a rmoured cha ra cters. He ha s left us a vivid record of part of his advent ure. We would be wise to study it w ith care. I for one have been instructed. ■
* P u b l i sh e d b y F a r r a r , S t r a u s , a n d G i r ou x , N . Y. , 1 96 8. Av a i la b l e from Nat ura l Energy Works, PO Box 864, El C errito, CA 94530.
Wil helm Reich, 1952 Why Is Reich Never Mentioned?
Laing
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