Wilhelm Reich Read online

  Thus, between the time he started medical school in 1919 and his graduation in 1922, he had already been invited into the inner circle of psychoanalysis and started to write papers that show his vast knowledge of the current and past literature.4 He was especially taken with Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams5 and started applying its model to his own dream material outside of the analytic sessions. It is a common misconception that Reich was not concerned with classical dream analysis, but in fact he occasionally took note of his own rather revealing dreams, and he recorded and analyzed the dreams of his patients to help him with his work on their muscular armoring.

  I think that his dream interpretations often fell into Freudian ruts, and I propose to give them a more capacious reading, going beyond his analyses. In general, his personal dreams were less complex and multilayered than Jung’s, as one can say that Jung was a true creative genius of the dreamscape in a way that neither Freud nor Reich ever was. I think that the deep flaws in Freud’s dream theory stem largely from the fact that his own dream life was too linguistically oriented, seeing plays on words from the residue of the previous day’s activities as being the main work of the dream economy. Consequently, Freud’s dreams simply lacked the metaphoric density of Jung’s (which were image focused), and the dreams that he wrote about were not as amenable to as much categorial or phenomenological probing as Jung’s. Further, Freud’s wish fulfillment and displacement model, based on an archaeological and resistance hermeneutic (theory of interpretation) places far too much power in the hands of the analyst (who must overcome the resistance), while Jung’s model of circumambulation and amplification of symbols is teleological (goal-oriented) and lets symbols unfold according to their own multiform future. But Reich, more than Freud, revealed some of his anima fixations (the archetype of the “divine feminine”) and the presence of his hypomanic characteristics when he wrote about his dreams.

  In addition to his classwork and his budding work in psychoanalysis was his growing interest in politics and in the “Jewish problem.” Central to this interest is a journal entry from February 25, 1919, when Reich reports on having gone, somewhat reluctantly, to hear a Dr. Bergmann from Prague talk about a new understanding of Judaism and of the role of Jews in the postwar world:

  There was no hatred for everything non-Jewish, but a meaningful receptiveness to others; no controversy over Jewish versus Hebrew, over blue-and-white versus red-and-green, but expansiveness in all directions, renewing itself in ever-widening circles. Down came the impenetrable barriers, and then—the word came to me—international cosmopolitanism in the broadest sense! I confess that, for the first time since hearing or experiencing similar speeches, something arose within me—an explanation! This was the reason why I hated—yes, hated—all those who endeavored to help the Jews attain happiness—not along with other human beings, but over their dead bodies; not with the consent of others, but against their will! Not “we are all together,” but just “we”! And finally I was listening to a man who is both a Jew and a human being simultaneously, not a chauvinist! We shall see what kind of fruit his efforts will bear.6

  Needless to say, this is a pre-Holocaust writing, and it ignores the growth of anti-Semitism in Vienna and throughout the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. It reminds one of another Jewish thinker who expressed international cosmopolitanism in his philosophical perspective: the philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-77), who was excommunicated from his religious congregation in Amsterdam for holding views that were outside of the Torah.7 For both Spinoza and Reich, a religious community must bind itself to the power of universal reason and the cosmic power that can best be defined as “nature continually creating itself out of itself.” Neither thinker required a paternalistic god who would somehow magically create the world out of nothingness and then rule it on the model of an earthly (and abusive) father. There are some surprising parallels between a psychoanalytic deconstruction of the patriarchal deity and the rationalistic elimination of classical theism. Both Reich and Spinoza, then, represent thinkers who could show a tradition how to become generic and emancipatory from within.

  Reich’s brilliant academic work, his sudden emergence as a young force within the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, his slow political radicalization, and his unique form of cosmopolitan Judaism all still took place against the physical background of his libidinal surges, and he again found himself on the edges of Oedipal and professional boundaries. On December 22, 1919, he wrote in his diary, “Twice I masturbated while consciously fantasizing about my mother—saw and felt only her abdomen, never her face.”8 We have noted above that Cecilie had encouraged fairly serious erotic play with Willy, especially with her breasts, and that he came to regard such boundary transgressions as within the bounds of normal behavior, perhaps as part of a legitimate means of testing his male prowess against the abusive father. My speculation is that his later propensity for complex emotional triangles had its root in his mother’s “permission” to invade forbidden territory. This evolved into his need to rescue the (lucky) chosen woman from a partner whom she may not even have suspected was unworthy of her devotion, compared, of course, to the great man himself, who was more than happy to provide an escape from a (secretly) unhappy situation.

  On the professional side, Reich worked on a case that had profound implications for his personal life, even if he was to keep the immediate professional censure (this time) at bay. It should be remembered that in the early days of psychoanalysis, the rules for analyst/analysand behavior outside of the analytic situation were not as clearly set as they are today. For example, it was Jung’s practice to tell his patients about any major dreams he had about them, thus revealing key pieces of his countertransference. This would be very much frowned upon today by most analysts. And of course Jung committed many sexual transgressions, indiscretions that he struggled to keep hidden, especially in the well-known cases of Sabina Spielrein and Toni Wolff.9

  The case in point involved one of Reich’s first patients, with whom he worked even before getting his M.D. The patient was a nineteen-year-old kindergarten teacher named Lore Kahn, who came to Reich in the winter of 1919-20. According to his account in his autobiography, which strikes me as a bit defensive, Lore declared her love for him after a few sessions, and he wrote it off as a classical father-transference. Yet he soon admitted to himself that he might be able to have her after their analysis was completed. After all, nothing was to prevent such a post-therapeutic relationship:

  In short, Lore declared one day that she was analyzed, and now she wanted me.

  I did not feel much desire for her. One should not sleep with one’s patients; it is too complicated and dangerous. But Lore was at last “herself.” She could wait, she said … After all, she was no longer a patient. And it was nobody’s business. I loved her, and she grew very happy.

  On the 27th of October 1920, she wrote the last entry in her diary:

  I am happy, boundlessly happy, I would never have thought that I could be—but I am. The fullest, deepest fulfillment. To have a father and be a mother, both in the same person. Marriage! Monogamy! At last! Never was there coitus with such sensual pleasure, such gratification, and such a sense of oneness and interpenetration as now. Never such parallel attraction of the mind and body. And it is beautiful. And I have direction, clear, firm, and sure—I love myself this way. I am content as nature intended! Only one thing: a child!10

  It is characteristic that Reich referred to the analyst/analysand sexual prospect as “too complicated and dangerous” rather than as unprofessional or unethical, even postanalysis. But people with borderline tendencies are often drawn to the complicated and dangerous, and for good or ill, this tendency makes for daring science, great art, charismatic leadership, and dynamic speaking.

  The relationship flowered after the (premature?) termination of analysis, and Reich immediately encountered hostility from Kahn’s family, who assumed that he was abusing his power as an analyst over their emotionally fragile daught
er. Their position is understandable, given that Reich’s personality was a dominating force in almost all of his relationships, even though he had, as he admitted, deeply seeded masochistic components derived from, I think, paternal abuse. In any case, their intense love affair was complicated by a typical Reichian triangle. He was also in love with a fellow medical student, Lia Laszky, and was unwilling to give up this “necessary” psychological lifeline:

  She knew that I loved Lia, differently from her. We understood that one can love two people simultaneously when one is young. She was not angry, any more than I was angry with Lia. All was well between us. But we had no room in which we could be together undisturbed. It was no longer possible at my place; the landlady had become hostile and a threat. So Lore got a room at a friend’s. It was unheated and bitter cold. Lore became ill, ran a high fever, with dangerous articular rheumatism, and eight days later died of sepsis [toxic condition resulting from bacterial infection], in the bloom of her young life.11

  One theme emerges here that became an important social issue for Reich, namely, the lack of access to private spaces for lovemaking for the urban youth of Vienna. His hatred for patriarchy had as one of its sources the ability of fathers to literally control their daughters’ living spaces so that they could not begin the sexual experiments that he saw as so crucial to their full development as human beings. The issue of Lore’s rather sudden death quickly started a series of accusations that could have brought Reich to complete ruin.

  Lore’s mother accused Reich of forcing Lore to have an illegal abortion, the botched effects of which caused her to die alone in her room. She further asserted that Reich used his “influence” to cover over the fact, and that this was more evidence of his callous and ruthless behavior. To be implicated in an illegal abortion, especially if one was a medical student who should know the law, was a very serious charge, but Reich met it head on. From his perspective, the mother was in love with him, and she was doing all in her power to damage him because he had not reciprocated her love. But she claimed to have evidence from reliable sources that the abortion had indeed taken place, that Reich was covering it up, and that she could, and would, use this evidence against him.

  His tactic was simple: he took her with him to meet the people she named, and they simply denied any such knowledge of what she had been told. From Reich’s autobiographical account, this closed the matter, although it did not cool off the mother’s displaced romantic longings. To compound the tragedy, and to add irony to irony, Lore’s mother committed suicide by gassing herself in December 1920. In his diary entry of December 10, Reich blamed himself: “But this time it’s different [from his mother’s suicide], for I am the cause—not a soul to help me! It’s awful! Who will tell me how I should have behaved? I was the cause, but could I have helped it? Who will tell me what I am?”12 In Sharaf’s account, based upon 1971 interviews with Reich’s fellow medical students Grete Bibring and Lia Laszky,13 he accepts the validity of the abortion charge. What is one to make of this rather serious conflict in interpretation, where you have the word of Reich, which is clearly designed to present himself in the best possible light, in conflict with the accounts, taken down fifty years later, from one member of his love triangle (Lia) and from another woman (Grete) who spurned Reich’s romantic interest at the time and later often spoke of Reich with distaste? Until more data appear, one can only hazard a guess.

  Whether or not there was an abortion, Reich repeated the analyst/ analysand love relationship a year later with a patient named Annie Pink. On January 13, 1921, he wrote in his diary:

  It is becoming increasingly obvious that I am analyzing Annie Pink with intensions of later winning her for myself—as was the case with Lore … How do I feel about that? What must I do? Terminate the analysis? No, because afterwards there would be no contact! But she—what if she remains fixated on me as Lore did? Resolve the transference thoroughly! Yes, but is transference not love, or, better said, isn’t all love a transference?

  A young man in his twenties should not treat female patients.14

  The analysis lasted six months, and at its termination Reich was able, by his account, to declare his love to Annie, who had, interestingly enough, been a friend of Lore. By the middle of the summer they had become lovers. On March 17, 1922, they were married in a civil ceremony, although Reich insisted in his diary that it was a “forced marriage” due to intense pressure from Annie’s parents. This, to me, is a striking and interesting pattern—namely, that Reich had to gain control of his future wife by analyzing her psychosexual Oedipal structures and cathecting them in his direction as the new Oedipal and transference object. He conflates the distinction between transference and love in a way that gives serious pause, precisely because the transference is unconscious and takes away autonomy and also involves the projection of complexes, whereas genuine love entails the opening of one integrated psyche to another integrated psyche. The marriage was not destined to survive; but the pattern that set it in motion was.

  One of Reich’s first recorded dreams sheds some light on his therapeutic and relational strategies as well as on the depth structures of his intense drive to connect with powerful female figures. This classical anima dream was recorded on January 3, 1921:

  A tall girl, with long, flowing hair, in a loose garment, spoke from a sweet little mouth; I kissed her hand, leaned against her—shoulder to shoulder, cheek to cheek—and far beyond, beyond the gray-gold city, the sky opened up. Two large, bony hands wave—you call out—why should that not be possible?

  No! Joyous, calling, singing—Leopoldsberg—the church rising from the old wall—below us the deep Danube valley—clothes off, and we danced, naked as our mothers bore us, danced, so close to the edge.

  Scherzo (Allegro)—we danced, danced naked as the children of God, in the long shadows of our bodies cast by a silent moon—peace drew us together again and I buried my heated brow in her tender thighs, covered my head with her long blond hair—so close to the edge—while we wound our arms around and around each other like serpents and my brow found her soft white breast.

  Oh, what a pitiable psychoanalyst I am! How well I know what all this means!15

  Unfortunately, Reich does not enlighten us as to “what all this means.” But several aspects of his dream shed great light on his personality, both at the age of twenty-three and as it intensified in his later years: (1) the dreamlike quality of the landscape, showing its mythic and archetypal nature (in the prelude to the dream proper he states that he is “off in a cloud”); (2) the classic larger-than-life anima as divine figure with flowing hair who contains magical secrets and healing energies (especially between her thighs and on her breasts); (3) the magical gray-gold city that is unlike, yet like, any earthy city (a classic archetypal paradox); (4) Reich and his anima always dancing “so close to the edge”; (5) the lunar power that is another representation of the anima; and (6) the serpentlike entwining (a still-lingering patriarchal image in need of transformation).

  The repeated image of dancing naked, close to the edge, is a perfect iconic representation of both hypomania and borderline/impulsive features, as both entail a rich transgressive energy that must find itself “on the boundaries,” in the words of Paul Tillich. At the same time, because of the devouring quality of the abyss that lies just beyond the edge, the protective thighs and breasts of the anima must be available for the “heated brow” of the satyrlike creature who is as primal as the day he came out of his mother’s womb. He dances the triple-time Scherzo and the brisk Allegro to express his mania and to divest himself of some of its fury. The healing anima becomes the divine Other who takes on his mania and cools its energy, especially with the voluminous in-taking power of her vagina and the cooling power of her “soft white breast.” Here there is no hint of the vagina dentata, namely the devouring vagina that eviscerates the penis and leaves the man castrated and ruined. This dream anima is almost exclusively a positive energy, which shows that the dream is a compensato
ry dream for his strong negative/conflicted feelings toward woman, especially Cecilie and perhaps the deceased (murdered?) Lore. The anima is blond, which was the preferred hair color for all of Reich’s fantasy women and many of his actual women.16

  Serpent power is an interesting concept in its own right. From the patriarchal perspective, the serpent has been associated with feminine wiles and has thus been abjected as a form of life that should be distrusted and even destroyed. In a postpatriarchal world the serpent (perhaps no longer even called a “serpent”) will be more properly seen as a symbol of constant renewal and regeneration, rather than as a source of evil and temptation. It is interesting that in Reich’s dream the serpent symbol takes on the makings of a postpatriarchal image and functions in a more positive way, leading me to further suspect that he was moving beyond the kind of patriarchy that was so endemic to Vienna in the 1920s and later.

  There is also a clear sign of his dominating presence, a key trait of his therapeutic relationships, which were anything but passive. He actively buries his head in the anima’s thighs, not waiting for an invitation. He gathers her long blond hair around his head as if to hide from the gaze of the outside world. The image I have of his anima ideal is similar to that of a Pre-Raphaelite painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, namely, his 1849-50 Ecce Ancilla Domini, or The Annunciation, that shows Mary and the angel of the lord as two young and beautiful blond women with flowing hair and thin, lean, intense faces. They represent a combination of nineteenth-century northern European ideal womanhood and medieval iconography. Clearly, they could be the rescuers without parallel.