The strange case of Wilhelm Reich.

As far as the editors can determine, the following article by Mildred Edie Brady reprinted from the New Republic of May 26,1947, with the permission of the editors and the author, is a valid presentation of ““The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich.”” In view of the fact that the author of the article suggested that members of the medical profession had not themselves made sufficient effort to warn the public of their non-approval of Mr. Reich, the editors of the Bulletin decided to reprint her article for the benefit of our readers. In the middle and late 1920’’s, Reich made some important contributions to the theory of psychoanalysis in his numerous papers and book on character analysis. He was expelled from the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1934 because of his complete ideological departure. At the same time his political activities, as described in the following article, had brought him into sharp conflict with all political parties, including the Nazis, the Socialists, and the Communists. The review by Jules H. Masserman of Reich’’s latest edition of Character Analysis, in Psychosomatic Medicine is not an official repudiation of Reich by psychoanalysts. When an individual leaves a scientific field of endeavor, it is hardly customary and certainly unnecessary that workers in the original field should be expected to state their opinions publicly. His present interests, theories and practice involving the orgastic potency theory and the discovery of orgone have nothing to do with psychoanalysis and are not accepted as such by any of the leaders in psychoanalysis today.