'ES' - The Institute for Bodymindintegration
Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) Archive (Booklist and Articles on file)
PART 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
"Love, work and knowledge are the well-springs of our life.
They should also govern it."
Other literature
During the first half of the 20th Century, Austrian Psychiatrist an biophysicist Wilhelm Reich foresaw many powerful social movements that are shaping the culture of the modern world. My view is that there is a lot of wisdom to be found in almost all of Reich's writings, including his sometimes ridiculed philosophical texts of the early 1950s. Reich had an enormous theoretical power, and even Freud's writings, while often stylistically better, seem many times rather tame when compared to Reich's.
Reich's ideas on Childbirth, childrearing, alternative education, womens rights, self-fulfillment -and his view of our place in the cosmos- are as revolutionary today, as they were in the first half of the last century.
He prophesied the crumbling of monogamy and the splitting up of the nuclear family, he predicted the abolition of laws against abortion, birth control and homosexuality, he demonstrated how body language reveals emotional suppression and pioneered bodywork therapy, he related individual health to emotional make up and proposed the adoption of natural medicine, he experimented with weather control and brought rain to the desert.
Below, you find a list of books (written both in Dutch and English, sometimes in German.... Thanks for your flexibility) that we have on file in "'ES'-The Institute for Bodymind Integration". Many of them are first editions, and rare, since both the Nazi's and the US Government burnt his books at one time.
Reich's books were in many ways controversial, and also in many ways ahead of their time. His findings were constantly challenging paradigms within each of the disciplines which he mastered. They are still today works of reference for many bodypsychotherapists and orgonomists. You can find some background about his life here.
Journals and Books written by Wilhelm Reich (+ their translations)
Reich as insider - Building a career: 1920-1926
- 1919
| Reich, Wilhelm: "Zur ‘Aufklaerung’ im Kampf gegen die Geschlechtskrankheiten - Bemerkungen zu dem Aufsatz von Kurt Finkenrath" Zeitschrift fuer Sexualwissenschaft, 1919 |
- 1920:
| Reich, Wilhelm, PEER GYNT: Libidokonflikte und Wahngebilde |
Reich werd in 1920 toegelaten als lid van de Weense Psychoanalytische Vereniging na een presentatie van een psychoanalytische studie van Ibsen's Peer Gynt. De Engelstalige versie vind je hiervan in Early Writings. Vol. 1. , als Libidinal Conflicts and Delusions in Ibsen's Peer Gynt. Reich identificeerde zich tijdens zijn leven met de mythe of het archetype van Peer Gynt, en later met die van Christus als de lijdende dienaar van de mensheid.
| Reich, Wilhelm, Ueber einen Fall von Durchbruch der Inzestschranke in der Pubertät, Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, VII, 1920-1921 pp. 220-226. |
This is a brief document which by many is seen as an anonymus and disguised self-study. It is considered to be a Keytext for the psychological understanding of the person Wilhelm Reich. Reich analyzes the childhood Oedipal conflicts of a student in his twenties.
- 1921:
| Reich, Wilhelm, Kindliche Tagtraeume einer spaeteren Zwangsneurose, Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, VII, 1921. |
This Volume once belonged to Paul Federn, Reich's analyst.
- 1922:
| Reich, Wilhelm, Der Koitus und die Geschlechter. Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft. VIII Band Januar 1922 10.Heft, pp. 343-352. |
Reich poogt een overtuigend alternatief te voorzien voor de biologische en fysiologische argumenten die de verschillen in tijdsspanne proberen te verklaren tussen mannelijke en vrouwelijke climaxen. Reich: "Nicht also eine zweite Ejakulation ist die Forderung der Natur, sondern Koinzidenz von zärtlicher und sinnlicher Strebung".
| Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, VIII, 1922. |
- Reich, Wilhelm, Ueber Spezifitaet der Onanieformen, pp.333-337.
Presented to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society on October 10, 1922. Reich toont zijn gevoeligheid voor detail als taxonoom en naturalist wanneer hij zich verdiept in de specifieke kenmerken betreffende masturbatie. In een poging impotentie te behandelen, stelt Reich zich de volgende vragen over de manier waarop patiënten zich masturberen: 1) Waar masturberen ze zich? 2) Wanneer masturberen ze zich? 3) Met welke materialen masturberen ze zich 4) Met welke fantasieën masturberen ze zich 5) Hoe dikwijls masturberen ze zich? 6) In welke lichamelijke positie masturberen ze zich, en is die houding verbonden met enige gebeurtenis uit de kindertijd? 7) Met welk meubel masturberen ze zich, en welke zijn de fantasieën die de daad hebben op het meubel. Reich maakt op die manier diverse categoriën van normale en afwijkende vormen van masturbatie die de clinicus kunnen helpen in het opstellen van een prognose betreffende gezonde genitaliteit. "The form in which the sexual act was fantasized, and the manner in which the manipulation took place, offered an easy approach to the unconscious conflicts". "This report contained only a few remarks on the possible prognostic and therapeutic importance of these special practices. But this was how I got on the track of the role of genitality in the therapy of the neuroses". (Reich, 1940, p. 50).
- Reich, Wilhelm, Zwei narzißtische Typen, pp.456-462.
Reich beschrijft in dit artikel het onderscheid tussen wat hij "neurose" noemt en het "neurotisch karakter". (Dit vormt de ruggengraat van zijn Charakteranalyse van 1933). "Im Grunde gibt es keine noch so scharf unschriebene Neurose ohne Spuren von Störungen der Gesamtpersönlichkeit. Das Minderwertigkeitsgefühl, die Begleiterscheinung sämtlicher Neurosen, die narzistissche Narbe' (Marcinowsky), ist der konstante Ausdruck dieser Störung".
| Reich, Wilhelm, Triebbegriffe von Forel bis Jung, Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, IX Band 1922.pp. 17, 44, 75. |
- 1923:
| Reich, Wilhelm, Zur Triebenergetik, Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, X Band. 1923. |
Essay presented to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society on June 8, 1921 (Reich, W., The Function of the Orgasm, 1940, p. 47). Reich's first endeavor toward a biophysical formulation of instinctual processes. This first step will lead to his later functional unification of the quantitative concept of excitation and the qualitative concept of pleasure. Reich remembers "it was not understood. From that time on, I presented clinical material only, and stayed away from theoretical essays". Op het ogenblik dat Freud het min of meer had opgegeven om een somatische basis te vinden voor de zgn. 'psychoneurosen', en meer en meer overhelde naar een "het psychologizeren van de biologie", verscheen Reich op de psychoanalytische scene met zijn enthoesiasme voor het idee van "sexuele energie". Reich stelt op het eind van zijn bijna veertig jarige carriëre, waarin hij een stap-voor-stap functionele wetenschappelijke logica volgt dat : "the subject of his work, despite its ramifications, constitutes a "functional and logical whole" and that in comparison the "first endeavor toward a biophysical formulation of instinctual processes in Zur Trieb-Energetik (1923) with the latest orgonomic work in 1952, [one] will easily discover the read thread which runs through all the clinical, experimental, and theoretical labors: The theme of the bioenergetic function of excitability and motility of living substance".
| Reich, Wilhelm, Die Rolle der Genitalitaet in der Neurosentherapie, Zeitschrift für Aerztliche Psychotherapie, IX, 1923. |
- 1924:
| Reich, Wilhelm, Der Tic als Onanieequivalent, Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, 1924. |
Case presented in January 1923. Gevalsstudie over ene A.F., waarbij Reich een soort van droomanalyse toepast. Hij werpt met deze studie licht op hoe seksuele repressie zich kan uitdrukken als somatische tics en dat zulke tics (bijna) altijd kunnen teruggetraceerd worden tot de eeuwige strijd tussen een partiële drift en een kwaadwillig superego. "The patient was an older woman suffering from a diaphragmatic tic, which subsided when it became possible for her to masturbate. My presentation was praised and affirmed". (Reich, 1940, p. 86).
| Reich, Wilhelm, Über Genitalität vom Standpunkt der psa. Prognose und Libidotheorie. Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, X, Vienna, 1924. pp. 164-179 + Die therapeutische Bedeutung der genitalen Libido. pp. 217-218. |
On November 1923, after three years of investigation, Reich read his first major paper for the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. "On Genitality, from the Point of View of the Prognosis and Therapy of Psychoanalysis." Reich citeert zeven gevalsstudies. Genitaal libido wordt gezien als niet beperkt tot de fallus, clitoris of vagina, maar als iets globaals. Reich gaat stilaan van symptoom naar karakteranalyse. Door karakteranalyse, wordt de persoon getransformeerd tot een in essentie nieuwe persoon, en zodoende worden de natuurlijke energiën van genitale libido bevrijd om de partiële driften van onderuit te transformeren in één grote transfiguratie. Reich about this reading: "I became aware of a growing chilliness in the mood of the meeting...."
- 1925:
| Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse. XI Band. 1925. |
- Wilhelm Reich: Eine hysterische Psychose in statu nascendi. pp. 211-222. "In October 1923, I read a paper before the society on introspection in a schizophrenic patient who had particularly clear insights into the mechanisms of her persecution ideas. She confirmed the finding of Tausk regarding the influence of the genital apparatus".(Reich, 1940. p 86) (Vertaald in het Nederlands in : Psychoanalytische Perspektieven, 1990, nr. 15, pp. 73-86. Zie verder: Mislukte Analyse of Schizofrene Opstoot. Enkele kanttekeningen bij een artikel van W. Reich, door Katrien Libbrecht, ibid; pp.87-96.)
- Wilhelm Reich: Weitere Bemerkungen über die therapeutische Bedeutung der Genitallibido. pp.297-317.
Reich, nu 28 jaar oud, gebruikt voor het eerst het concept van "orgastische potentie" en komt nu vrij openlijk in opstand tegen Freud. Zie ook: Reich, W., The Function of the Orgasm. Een deel hiervan vind men afgedrukt in het Journal of Orgonomy Vol. 14 no.1. Voor een hedendaags model van de energetische cyclus, waarvan Reich de grondlegger is, zie: Jack Painter, Ph.D., Stages in Natural Energy Flow en Blockages of the Natural Flow of Energy.
REICH, Wilhelm Der triebhafte Charakter. [Eine psychoanalytische Studie zur Pathologie des Ich] Vienna: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1925. "Neue Arbeiten zur ärtzlichen Psychoanalyse Nr. IV." Leipzig/Vienna/Zurich
Octavo, 132pp. Erste Ausgabe. |
First edition of this important early study of the neurotic character. An early contribution to ego psychology which defined the impulsive character as a transitional stage between the psychoneuroses and psychoses -- what are now called borderline patients. Thus, though he does not use the term, Reich's monograph is an important contribution to the development of the 'borderline' concept. Reich : "Such cases were not in the same category as simple neuroses or psychotic illnesses. Impulsive characters seemed to represent a transitional stage between neurosis and psychosis. The ego still functioned properly, but it was torn between affirmation of instinct and affirmation of morality, between negation of morality and negation of instinct, at one and the same time. It seemed to be in a rage against its own conscience, seemed to want to rid itself of it by exaggerating the impulsive actions. And the contradictory, brutal upbringing. Compulsive neurotics and hysterical patients are brought up from an early age in a consistently antisexual way". (Reich, 1940, p. 70).
The Radicalization of Reich: 1926-1930
- Wilhelm Reich: Zur Technik der Deutung und der Widerstandsanalyse. pp. 141-159.
| Zeitschrift für Psychoanalytische Pädagogik. I Jahrgang Heft 7-8-9. 1927. |
- Wilhelm Reich: Eltern als Erzieher: Die Stellung der Eltern zur kindlichen Onanie. pp. 263-269.
- 1928:
| Zeitschrift für psychoanalytische Pädagogik. II Jahrgang. Jan.-Febr.-März 1928. Heft 4-5-6. |
- Wilhelm Reich: Uber die Onanie im Kindesalter, pp.149-152
| Zeitschrift für psychoanalytische Pädagogik. III Jahrgang. Nov-Dez. 1928. Heft 2/3. |
- Wilhelm Reich: Wohin führt die Nackterziehung?
| Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse. XIV Band. 1928. |
- Wilhelm Reich: Uber Charakteranalyse. pp. 180-196.
| Almanach der Psychoanalyse. 1928. |
Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag. Wien. (Dritte Almanach des Internationalen Psychoanalytischer Verlages in Wien für das Jahr 1928, herausgegeben von A.J. Storfer, wurde in einer Auflage von 8000 Exemplaren gedruckt in der Buchdruckerei Christoph Reisser's Söhne, Wien V).
- Contains: Wilhelm Reich, Die Spaltung der Geschlechtlichkeit und ihre Folgen für Ehe und Gesellschaft.
- 1929:
| Reich, Wilhelm: Dialektischer Materialismus und Psychoanalyse, Sexpol Verlag, 1934, in German and Russian, 1929. |
| Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse. XV Band. 1929. |
- Wilhelm Reich: Der genitale und der neurotische Charakter. Untersuchungen über die libido-ökonomische Funktion des Charakters. pp. 435-455.
| Die Psychoanalytische Bewegung. I Jahrgang. Heft 4. Nov.-Dez. 1929. |
- Wilhelm Reich: Die Stellung der Psychoanalyse in der Sowjetunion, pp.358-368.
| Reich, Wilhelm: Sexualerregung und Sexualbefriedigung, Muensterverlag, Vienna, III Auflage 1930 (1929). |
Liberation and Rejection - Reich's Breaks with the Psychoanalytic Association: 1930-1934
- 1930:
| Almanach der Psychoanalyse. 1930. |
Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag. Wien. (Almanach des Internationalen Psychoanalytischer Verlages in Wien für das Jahr 1930, herausgegeben von A.J. Storfer).
- Contains: Wilhelm Reich, Die Dialektik im Seelischen.
| Reich, Wilhelm. Geschlechtsreife, Enthaltsamkeit, Ehemoral. Eine Kritik der bürgerlichen Sexualreform. Münster-Verlag/Wien. 1930 |
(Also:Berlin: Underground Press 1968). 182 SS. OBrosch. - Revolutionäre Schriften VI. - Abrechnung mit der Ehe aus sozialistischer Sicht. Daneben auch über die Sexualität und Moralentwicklung in der Pubertät.
- 1931
| Reich, Wilhelm, Sexualnot der Werkstätigen und die Schwierigkeit sexueller Beratung, in: Sexualnot und Sexualreform. Verhandlungen der Weltliga für Sexualreform. IV Kongress abgehalten zu Wien vom 16.bis 23. september 1930. Wien, Elbemühl-Verlag. 1931. |
| Reich, Wilhelm, Ueber den epileptischen Anfall, Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, XVII, Vienna 1931, p.263-275. (Also in International Journal for Psychoanalysis, London, 1932.) |
| Reich, Wilhelm, Die charakterologische Ueberwindung des Oedipuskomplexes, Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, XVII, Vienna 1931, p. 55-71. (Also appeared as: Ueber den Oedipuskomplex : drei psychoanalytische Studien, F. Boehm, O. Fenichel, W. Reich, Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag,1931. |
- 1932
Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse. XVIII Band. 1932.
|
- Wilhelm Reich: Der Masochistische Charakter. Eine sexualökonomische Widerlegung des Todestriebes und des Wiederholungszwanges
This article shows the beginnings of Reich's moving from character-analytic rigidities to bodily ones, from the character armor to the muscular armor. Within a few years, Reich's main therapeutic attention would be devoted to the bodily spasms or "armor segments", not only in the pelvis as he called attention to in the masochistic character, but throughout the body.
- Wilhelm Reich: Anbschliessende Bemerkung zur "Gegenkritik" Bernfelds. pp. 303-386.
| Reich, Wilhelm. Einbruch Der Sexualmoral: Zur Geschichte Der Sexuellen Ökonomie. Berlin, Verlag für Sexualpolitik. Berlin-Leipzig-Wien. 1932. 137p. |
Der Einbruch der sexualmoral, ist Reichs zentrale Schrift zum Zusammenhang zwischen Sexualität, Besitz und Herschaftsdenken. Wesentlich für Reichs Theorie ist der Nachweis, daß eine frei entwickelte sexualität nicht zur Anarchie führt, sondern von Neurosen und Perversionen befreit.
Reich's 8th book "made use of Malinowski's findings about the Trobrianders to postulate that patriarchy, sex negation, and a class division had long ago 'invaded' the natural state of matriarchy, sex affirmation, and primitive communism" (Sharaf, pp. 197-8). Probably Reich's last book before he had to flee Germany. (Later translated in English as "The Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality.Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1971)
| Der Sexuelle Kampf der Jugend, Berlin: Verlag für Sexualpolitik, 1932. 152 pp. |
- 1933: Reich Departs Germany for Denmark, to Escape Nazi Persecution.
| Reich, Wilhelm, Die Massenpsychologie des Faschismus. Verlag für Sexualpolitik Kopenhagen-Prag-Zürich, 1933. 292 pp. II. Auflage, Verlag für Sexualpolitik 1933. English translantion in Reich 1946 |
This is a classical Work about Character structures and their susceptibility for the fascist and authoritarian influences in the broadest sense. In the 1933 edition, Reich still takes as Marxist point of view, while he uses and changes all Marxist terms into sexeconomic terms in the third revised and enlarged edition. He also goes deeper into the social consequenses of Orgone biophysics and the by that time further developed realizations of the orgone therapeutical oriented characteranalysis
| REICH, Wilhelm Charakteranalyse: Technik und Grundlagen. Vienna: Zelbstverlag (Manzsche, Vienna), 1933. 288 pp. |
First edition of this work outlining the theory and technique of character analysis, from an orthodox psychoanalytic perspective Reich's major contribution (as well as the source of a host of body-oriented therapies such as bioenergetics). There is some irony, then, that Reich was forced to publish this work himself when Freud notified him by letter that the contract with the International Psychoanalytic Publishers, of which Freud was the editorial director, had been cancelled. According to Reich biographer Myron Scharaf, Freud's explanation that the political situation in Vienna determined his decision merely hid the fact of Freud's own increasing "distaste for Reich's sex-pol activities" (Fury On Earth, 171).
The second edition of 1944 is enlarged with the lecture "Psychischer Kontakt und vegatative Strömung" that Reich gave at the 13. Psychoanalytischen Kongreß in Luzern. This text demonstrates Reich's estrangement of the classical Psychoanalysis and the transition to orgone biophysics. The third edition of 1948 contains also "über die emotionelle Pest" and "die Ausdruckssprache des Lebendigen". The psychoanalytical professional world has largly ignored the part that was added after 1933.
This is also one of the books that the Nazi's burned (Reich being Jewish) : "On the night of 4 November 1933, members of Adolf Hitler's personal guard, the SA, lit bonfires in the main squares of Germany's leading cities. The flames that disfigured the gothic architecture of Munich and Stuttgart, Hamburg and Hanover with grotesque shadows of a grotesque future were started with a unique fuel: the published work of many of Germany's leading scientists, philosophers, and medical men and women -- books by Jews. Among the many thousands of titles burned in public on that bitter November night were Character Analysis and The Function of the Orgasm by a young Austrian psychiatrist, Wilhelm Reich. As the Nazi stormtroopers gathered round the flames, Reich started packing his bags for a haven from intolerance and persecution in the US.
Twenty seven years later, On 17 March 1960, a convoy of official trucks rolled along 25th street on New York's lower east side and came to a stop outside the City public incinerator. Officials of the Federal Food and Drug Administration carried armfuls of the books contained in the trucks into the incinerator where waiting workmen cast them into the flames. The books thus burned included such titles as The Sexual Revolution, together with some familiar sounding titles: The Function of the Orgasm and Character Analysis. Wilhelm Reich had been dead for more than two years but he had achieved the unique double distinction of having his books burned by both the Nazis and the American Government. In America the opposition took the form of vested medical interests feeling threatened by his developments within energy medicine. The Food and Drug Administration - a notoriously restrictive organisation- brought out an injunction prohibiting him from practising what for them was an unauthorised form of medicine, and when he refused to give up his work, he was sentenced to two years in prison for contempt of court, where he died of heart failure in November 1957. Reich thus shared the fate of many great scientific pioneers who were not recognised in their own lifetimes, but were ostracised or penalised for their creative endeavours on behalf of mankind."
- 1934:
| REICH, Wilhelm, Dialektischer Materialismus und Psychoanalyse. Original: Verlag für Sexualpolitik, Copenhagen: 1934 59p. (Pol. Psych. Schriftenreihe der Sex. Pol. nr. 2). 60 pp. |
REICH, WILHELM. Dialekties Materialisme en Psychoanalyse. Amst.,z.j. 106p. (Serie wat te doen nr.4).
In German: nach dem Erstdruck in «Unter dem Banner des Marxismus» Originally published in 1929 in both Russian and German.
Go to PART 2 of our Reich Archive.
Reich's complete bibliography.
Comments about his evolution as a young psychoanalyst and his writings: Peter Nasselstein.
Page last revised Saturday, March 24, 2007
