Post by Mech on Dec 10, 2006 16:42:26 GMT -5
Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich (March 24, 1897–November 3, 1957) was an Austrian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.
Reich was a respected analyst for much of his life, focusing on character structure, rather than on individual neurotic symptoms. He was in many ways ahead of his time in promoting healthy adolescent sexuality, the availability of contraceptives and abortion, and the importance to women of economic independence. His biographer Myron Sharaf writes that Reich's work left a deep impression on influential thinkers such as Alexander Lowen, Fritz Perls, Paul Goodman, Saul Bellow, Norman Mailer, and William Burroughs.
He was also a controversial figure, particularly in later life, who came to be viewed by the psychoanalytic establishment as having "gone astray" or of having succumbed to mental illness. He is best known for his studies on the link between human sexuality and emotions; the importance of what he called "orgastic potency"; and for what he said was the discovery of a form of energy that permeated the atmosphere and all living matter, which he called "orgone." He built boxes called "orgone accumulators," which patients could sit inside, and which were intended to harness the energy for what he believed were its health benefits. It was this work, in particular, that cemented the rift between Reich and the psychiatric establishment.
Reich was living in Germany when Adolf Hitler came to power. Labeled a communist Jew by the Nazis, he fled to Scandinavia before moving to Rangely, Maine, United States in 1939. In 1947, following a series of critical articles about orgone in The New Republic and Harper's, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began an investigation into his claims, and won an injunction against the interstate sale of orgone accumulators. Charged with contempt of court for violating the injunction, Reich insisted on conducting his own defense, which involved sending the judge all his books to read. He was sentenced to two years in prison, and in August 1956, several tons of his publications were burned by the United States government. He died of heart failure in jail just over a year later, days before he was due to apply for parole.
Biography.
www.orgonomy.org/wr/reich_bio_01.html
Video
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L3tKddZFic&mode=related&search=
Wilhelm Reich (March 24, 1897–November 3, 1957) was an Austrian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.
Reich was a respected analyst for much of his life, focusing on character structure, rather than on individual neurotic symptoms. He was in many ways ahead of his time in promoting healthy adolescent sexuality, the availability of contraceptives and abortion, and the importance to women of economic independence. His biographer Myron Sharaf writes that Reich's work left a deep impression on influential thinkers such as Alexander Lowen, Fritz Perls, Paul Goodman, Saul Bellow, Norman Mailer, and William Burroughs.
He was also a controversial figure, particularly in later life, who came to be viewed by the psychoanalytic establishment as having "gone astray" or of having succumbed to mental illness. He is best known for his studies on the link between human sexuality and emotions; the importance of what he called "orgastic potency"; and for what he said was the discovery of a form of energy that permeated the atmosphere and all living matter, which he called "orgone." He built boxes called "orgone accumulators," which patients could sit inside, and which were intended to harness the energy for what he believed were its health benefits. It was this work, in particular, that cemented the rift between Reich and the psychiatric establishment.
Reich was living in Germany when Adolf Hitler came to power. Labeled a communist Jew by the Nazis, he fled to Scandinavia before moving to Rangely, Maine, United States in 1939. In 1947, following a series of critical articles about orgone in The New Republic and Harper's, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began an investigation into his claims, and won an injunction against the interstate sale of orgone accumulators. Charged with contempt of court for violating the injunction, Reich insisted on conducting his own defense, which involved sending the judge all his books to read. He was sentenced to two years in prison, and in August 1956, several tons of his publications were burned by the United States government. He died of heart failure in jail just over a year later, days before he was due to apply for parole.
Biography.
www.orgonomy.org/wr/reich_bio_01.html
Video
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L3tKddZFic&mode=related&search=