Wilhelm Reich (March 24, 1897 – November 3, 1957) was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. Reich was a respected analyst for much of his life, focusing on character structure, rather than on individual neurotic symptoms. "Wilhelm Reich," Encyclopaedia Britannica. He promoted adolescent sexuality, the availability of contraceptives and abortion, and the importance for women of economic independence. Synthesizing material from psychoanalysis, cultural anthropology, economics, sociology, and ethics, his work influenced writers such as Alexander Lowen, Fritz Perls, Paul Goodman, Saul Bellow, Norman Mailer, A. S. Neill, and William Burroughs. He was also a controversial figure, who came to be viewed by the psychoanalytic establishment as having gone astray or as having succumbed to mental illness. His work on the link between human sexuality and neuroses emphasized "orgastic potency" as the foremost criterion for psycho-physical health. He said he had discovered a form of energy, which he called "orgone," that permeated the atmosphere and all living matter, and he built "orgone accumulators," which his patients sat inside to harness the energy for its reputed health benefits. It was this work, in particular, that cemented the rift between Reich and the psychoanalytic establishment. Reich, of Jewish descent and a communist, was living in Germany when Adolf Hitler came to power. He fled to Scandinavia in 1933 and subsequently to the United States in 1939, by which time he had become an ardent anti-communist. In 1947, following a series of critical articles about orgone and his political views in The New Republic and Harper's, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began an investigation into his claims, winning an injunction against the interstate sale of orgone accumulators. Charged with contempt of court for violating the injunction, Reich conducted his own defense, which involved sending the judge all his books to read, and arguing that a court was no place to decide matters of science. He was sentenced to two years in prison, and in August 1956, several tons of his publications were burned by the FDA. Obituary notice for Wilhelm Reich, Time Magazine, November 18, 1957. He died of heart failure in jail just over a year later, days before he was due to apply for parole. Sharaf, Myron. Fury on Earth: A Biography of Wilhelm Reich. Da Capo Press, 1994, p. 477. (more)
Type: person
Genres: biology, science, sexologist
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Orgone:
Orgone energy is a bioenergetic extrapolation of the Freudian concept of libido, offered by psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich in the late 1930s. Like libido, orgone energy was conceived to be the life force of an individual, but Reich began to treat this e
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Alexander Lowen:
Dr. Alexander Lowen (born December 23 1910) is an American psychotherapist. A student of Wilhelm Reich's in the 1940s and early 1950s in New York, he developed the mind-body psychotherapy, a form of body psychotherapy known as Bioenergetic Analysis w
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Myron Sharaf:
Myron Ruscoll Sharaf (born 1927 - died May 13, 1997) was an American writer and psychotherapist. He taught in the Department of Psychology at Harvard Medical School, and was the director of the Center for Sociopsychological Research and Education, Bo
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Orgasm:
An orgasm (sexual climax) is the conclusion of the plateau phase of the sexual response cycle, and may be experienced by both males and females. Orgasm is characterized by intense physical pleasure, controlled by the involuntary, or autonomic, nervou
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Fritz Perls:
Friedrich (Frederick) Salomon Perls (July 8 1893, Berlin – March 14 1970, Chicago), better known as Fritz Perls, was a noted German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist of Jewish descent. He coined the term 'Gestalt Therapy' for the approach to ther
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A. S. Neill:
Alexander Sutherland Neill (October 17, 1883 - September 23, 1973) was a Scottish progressive educator, author and founder of Summerhill school, which remains open and continues to follow his educational philosophy to this day. He is best known as an
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W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism:
W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism (W.R. - Misterije organizma, W.R. - Мистерије организма) is a 1971 film by Dušan Makavejev that explores the relationship between communist politics and sexuality, as well as exploring the life and work of Wilhelm Reic
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Bioenergetic analysis:
Bioenergetic Analysis is an important part of body psychotherapy (body-oriented Reichian psychotherapy) based on the expression of feelings and the re-establishment of energy flow in the body. Developed out of Wilhelm Reich's character analytic techn
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Cloudbuster:
A Cloudbuster is a device -- described by scientists as "pseudoscientific" -- in the form of an "Orgone shooter" by which Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich claimed to be able to manipulate streams of "cosmic orgone energy" to cause clouds to produ
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Me and the Orgone:
Me and the Orgone - The True Story of One Man's Sexual Awakening (1972) is an autobiographical account written by American actor and award-winning director Orson Bean about his life-changing experience with the controversial orgone therapy developed
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Robert S. Corrington:
Robert S. Corrington (born 1950) is an American theologist and author of several books exploring human interpretation of the universe as well as biographies on C.S. Peirce and Wilhelm Reich. He is currently employed as professor of philosophical theo
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Orgonon:
Orgonon was the 160 acre home, laboratory and research center of the Austrian-born psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957). Located in Rangeley, Maine, it is Reich's burial place, and is now open to the public as the Wilhelm Reich Museum. The name is
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Concerning Specific Forms of Masturbation:
Concerning Specific Forms of Masturbation is a 1922 essay by Austrian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. It was written while he led the Vienna Outpatient Clinic for sexually-related problems and is an early work in his career which was to
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Listen, Little Man!:
Listen, Little Man! is a famous essay by Wilhelm Reich. Written in German in 1945 with the title Rede an den kleinen Mann, it was translated in 1948 by Theodore Peter Wolfe.
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Neo-Reichian massage:
Neo-Reichian massage or release is a system based on theories developed by Wilhelm Reich. Practitioners locate and dissolve "holding patterns" (also called "body armoring"). Reich theorized that obstructions to orgone energy cause neuroses and most p
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Body Psychotherapy:
Body Psychotherapy (also known as body-oriented psychotherapy) is a branch of Somatic Psychology and Psychotherapy with origins in clinical psychology and in the work of Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud. Body psychotherapy addresses both the body and t
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Cloudbusting:
"Cloudbusting" was the second single to be released from Hounds of Love by Kate Bush. "Cloudbusting" was released on October 14 1985 and made the top twenty in the UK Singles Chart, climbing to number 20. In the United States the song was also releas
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American College of Orgonomy:
The American College of Orgonomy (A.C.O.) was formed as a nonprofit institution by Dr. Elsworth F. Baker in 1968. The purpose of the College is to advance the scientific work in the science of orgonomy, originally developed by Dr. Wilhelm Reich. The
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