Reich, Psychoanalysis, and the Body

1. Reich and the human body in social theory Wilhelm Reich became a member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1920, whilst still a medical student. During the l920s and early 1930s, his work on psychoanalytic theory led to the publication of two major books, The Function of the Orgasm (1927; henceforth FO) and Character Analysis (1934; henceforth CA). In the former, he argued that the blocking of sexual energy was the root cause of all neurosis; in the latter, that therapeutic technique must identify and overcome the resistances of the patient’s character before addressing itself to the interpretation of specific symptoms. During the same period, he was also much involved in socialist politics, into which he attempted to ‘inject’ his psychoanalytic concerns, for instance in the organization of SexPol clinics for workers in Berlin in the early 193Os. He also published theoretical work on the relations between social structure, the family, and sexual repression; and in The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933) he analysed the unconscious bases of the authoritarian character-structures which he viewed as crucial features of fascism’s mass support.