Orgastic potency

In the work of Wilhelm Reich, "orgastic potency" is the ability to experience a sexual climax with specific psychosomatic characteristics - requiring the capacity to love. Impaired ability to do so, termed orgastic impotence (not to be confused with impaired ability to reach orgasm, or anorgasmia) is regarded in Reichian psychology as the cause of all neuroses. Coined in 1924, Reich described the concept in detail in the 1927 book Die Funktion des Orgasmus which he presented to Sigmund Freud on the latter's 70th birthday. Though Reich regarded his work as complementing Freud's original theory of anxiety neurosis, Freud was ambivalent in his reception. Reich continued to use orgastic potency as an indicator of a person's health in his later therapeutic methods such as vegetotherapy. The concept was never used outside Reichian circles.

Background and theory

File:Wilhelm Reich, Wilhelm Reich Museum.jpg

Wilhelm Reich

Reich developed his orgasm theory between 1921 and 1924 and it formed the basis for all his later contributions, including the theory of character analysis. The starting point of Reich's orgasm theory was his clinical observation of genital disturbance in all neurotics, which he presented in November 1923, in the paper "Genitality from the viewpoint of psycho-analytic prognosis and therapy" (published in the International Zeitschrift für Psa, 10, 1924). That presentation was met with a chilling silence, much hostility, and was partially discredited because Reich could not adequately define normal sexual health. In response, and after a further year of research, Reich introduced the concept "orgastic potency" at the 1924 Psycho-analytic Congress, Salzburg in the paper "Die therapeutische Bedeutung des Genitallibidos", (published in English as "Further Remarks on the Therapeutic Significance of Genital Libido" in the 1975 book Early Writings, Volume One).

Reich was strongly influenced by Sigmund Freud's pioneering analysis of sexuality, differentiating between stages of psychosexual development and redefining the libido as the energy of an unconscious sexual instinct. Reich emphasised the libido theory exactly when it was being discarded by psychoanalysis. Reich retained the idea of a sexual energy and the concept orgastic potency as central elements in sex-economy, a general Reichian theory of health dealing with an organism's energy household. Reich progressively called this energy libido, sexual energy, emotional energy, bioelectric energy, biophysical energy and, finally, orgone ("life") energy. In terms of this theory, an individual lacking in orgastic potency is unable to fully discharge energy in orgasm, and thus remains in a constant state of tension, both physical rigidity and mental anxiety, which constitutes neurosis. Orgastic potency enables the individual to receive satisfaction in the sex act, whereas those lacking in it are forever seeking it, and are therefore likely to be more sexually needy.

Reich considered orgastic potency to be an outcome of health because, he argued, full orgastic potency can only come about if a person is psychologically free of neurosis (pleasure anxiety), physically free from "body armor" (chronic muscular contraction), socially free from compulsive morality and duty (as imposed by authoritarian and mechanistic ways of life), and has the natural ability to love. Reich held that the vast majority of people do not meet these criteria and thus lack orgastic potency.

Definition

Reich defined the natural sexual act that orgastic potency enables the adult to fully experience as characterized by love and the ability to express it; full, deep, pleasurable breathing; deep, delicious current-like sensations running up and down the body shortly before orgasm; and involuntary muscular movements before climax. The pleasure of the orgasm depends on the amount of sexual tension concentrated in the genitals and the steepness of the drop of excitation during the orgasm. The description of orgastic potency and orgastic impotence for both men and women as described by Reich can be summarised as follows:

Phases of development of excitation	Orgastic potency	Orgastic impotence
1. Foreplay	"Biological readiness. 'Calm excitement.' Mutual pleasurable anticipation."	"Over- or under-excitement. 'Cold' erection. 'Dry' vagina. Foreplay insufficient or over-prolonged."
2. Penetration	"Preceded by a spontaneous urge to enter, or to be entered by, the partner."	"Either: sadistic piercing by the man and rape fantasy by the woman. Or: fear of penetrating or of being penetrated and decrease of pleasure at penetration."
3. Voluntary phase of sexual movements	"Movements are voluntary but effortless and rhythmical, unhurried and gentle. Extraneous thoughts are absent; there is absorption in the experience. Pleasurable sensations continue to increase. Periods of rest do not lead to a decrease of pleasure."	"Violent friction, nervous haste. Extraneous thoughts or fantasies are compulsively present. Pre-occupation with sense of duty to one's partner and fear of 'failure' or determination to 'succeed'. Period of rest likely to lead to a sharp drop in excitation."
4. Involuntary phases of muscle contractions	"Excitation leads to involuntary contractions of the genital musculature (which precede ejaculation in the man and lead to the acme). The total body musculature participates with lively contractions as the excitation flows back from the genital to the body. 'Melting' sensations in the body. Clouding of consciousness at the acme."	"Involuntary movements greatly reduced or in some cases absent altogether. Sensations remain localised in the genital and do not spread to the body as a whole. Involuntary responses may be simulated for the benefit of the partner. Squeezing and pushing, with spastic contraction, to achieve a climax. Head remains in control and the clouding of consciousness is absent."
5. Phase of relaxation	"Pleasant bodily and mental relaxation. Feeling of harmony with partner. Strong desire for rest or sleep. 'After-glow'."	"Feelings of leaden exhaustion, disgust, repulsion, indifference or hatred towards partner. Excitation not fully discharged, sometimes leading to insomnia. Omne animal post coitum triste est."

Changing definitions

Reich's precise definition for the phrase "orgastic potency" changed over time as he changed his understanding of the phenomenon. He first described it in detail in his 1927 book Die Funktion Des Orgasmus. In the 1980 English translation of the book, Genitality in the Theory and Therapy of Neuroses, he defined orgastic potency as "the ability to achieve full resolution of existing sexual need-tension".

In his 1940 book Die Entdeckung des Orgons Erster Teil: Die Function des Orgasmus, published in English in 1942 as The Discovery of the Orgone, Volume 1: The Function of the Orgasm, he defined it as "the capacity to surrender to the flow of biological energy, free of any inhibitions; the capacity to discharge completely the dammed-up sexual excitation through involuntary, pleasurable convulsions of the body."

His last published definition of orgastic potency (original date unclear, published in 1961) is "the capacity for complete surrender to the involuntary convulsion of the organism and complete discharge of the excitation at the acme of the genital embrace."

Orgasm theory

Orgastic potency is one central concept of a broader Reichian theory of the relation between neurosis and the function of the orgasm.

Correlation of neurosis and genital disturbance

Reich examined unsuccessful clinical cases, dividing them into two groups: those where therapy did not bring results, and those in which the patients, after apparent improvement, relapsed into their neuroses or developed new neuroses. In addition to his own patients' love lives, he examined through interviews and case records those of 200 patients seen at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Polyclinic. Reich was impressed by the depth and frequency of genital disturbances he observed. One example was a patient who had reported having a normal sex life, but on closer interviewing by Reich revealed not experiencing orgasm during intercourse and having thoughts of murdering her partner following the act. Such observations made Reich very suspicious of superficial reports about sexual experience. His analysis of these cases led Reich to conclude that genital disturbance was present in all neuroses and correlated in severity to the severity of the neurosis, and that all patients who improved in therapy and remained symptom-free achieved a gratifying genital sex life. This led Reich to establish criteria for satisfactory sexual intercourse. Based on interviews with people who appeared to have satisfactory sex lives, he described the sex act as being optimally satisfactory only if it follows a specific pattern. Orgastic potency is Reich's term for the ability to have this maximally fulfilling type of sexual experience, which in the Reichian view is limited to those who are free from neuroses and appears to be shared by all people free of neuroses.

Sexual stasis

Reich distinguished between complete release of accumulated sexual tensions in orgasm, resulting in the restoration of energy equilibrium, and orgastic impotence, in which the release of energy is incomplete, resulting in a damming-up of energy or stasis. This dammed-up sexual energy results in a vicious circle by feeding the inhibition that prevents sexual release and pleasure, which in turn increases sexual stasis, in a manner analogous to a pressure cooker. This outer rigidity and inner anxiety is the neurosis, which fuels harshness, brutality, sexual sadism, restriction, mechanisation, confinement to routines and becoming filled with compulsions or phobias as well as loneliness, helplessness, craving for authority, fear of responsibility and mystical longing.

Hence, stasis was the energy source of neurosis, and neurosis was the sum total of all chronic and automatic inhibitions of natural sexual excitations. Reich defined "stasis anxiety" as "[t]he anxiety caused by the stasis of sexual energy in the center of the organism when its peripheral orgastic discharge is inhibited." and the related "stasis neurosis" as "[a]ll somatic disturbances which are the immediate result of the stasis of sexual energy, with stasis anxiety at its core."

The energy source of neurosis

In his 1933 book Character Analysis (which moved beyond symptom analysis toward what is now called ego psychology), Reich related disturbances of orgastic potency to both types of neuroses originally distinguished by Freud: the actual neurosis and the psychoneurosis. Freud observed that one group of patients suffering from neurosis had sexual disturbances—practising coitus interruptus, conflicts related to masturbation or sexual abstinence—and were cured when these disturbances were removed. Hence, Freud reasoned that sexual maladaption caused the damming-up of actual "sexual stuff" and defined "actual neurosis" as anxiety based on dammed-up libido. In contrast, those with psychoneuroses had conflicts related to the unconscious: repressed impulses, desires and memories, and repressed unresolved conflicts and childhood traumas.

Based on this, Reich argued that frigidity and impotence were key to understanding neuroses, that the energy source of neuroses lay in the difference between accumulated and discharged sexual excitation caused by orgastic impotence, and therefore that while making a patient conscious of repressed sexuality alone might cure the neurosis, it would only necessarily do so when it also led to orgastic potency, that is, the ability to discharge the energy source of the neurosis. Thus, Reich concluded that having orgastic potency allows one to discharge the energy source of all forms of neuroses—both actual neurosis and psychoneurosis.

This fundamental relation between psychoneurosis and actual neurosis was revealed when they were treated, because anxiety was always felt when a neurotic symptom was given up. In other words anxiety was always present at the original moment of onset of neurosis, and all neurotic symptoms work to lessen or bind anxiety. (Over the years, Freud also realised that the distinction between actual neurosis and psychoneurosis was not absolute and that a psychoneurosis was hidden behind every actual neurosis and behind every psychoneurosis was a core of actual neurosis.)

Recurrence in Reich's work

Relationship of orgastic potency to body and mind

In Reichian psychology, the individual lacking orgastic potency is seen to have developed a neurotic psychosomatic "armor" that blocks the experience of pleasure. This is differentiated between the functionally identical "character armor" and "muscular armor."

Character armor

Central to Reichian character analysis is the concept of "character resistance" or "character defence", by which a person's character—what the patient did rather than what he or she said—was seen as his or her primary defence mechanism. Character attributes include posture, expression, and way of speaking. Reich defined character armor as "[t]he sum total of typical character attitudes which an individual develops as a blocking against his emotional excitations, resulting in rigidity of the body, lack of emotional contact, and 'deadness'."

Reich used the terms "genital character" and "neurotic character" to respectively distinguish between characters with and without orgastic potency. Real characters of actual people are considered to be somewhere on a continuum between the two.

Genital character

The genital character is the non-neurotic character structure, which is free from armor and, therefore, has the capacity of natural-self regulation on the basis of orgastic potency. The genital character is able to fully focus on a task or object, has a natural yearning for continued human contact that finds expression in work and social life, feels a healthy sympathy for fellow human beings in sorrow and happiness, and experiences life as a fulfilment and unfolding of his or her natural tendencies and struggle to achieve objectives. His or her sex life attains full bloom in a context of heterosexual intercourse with full surrender, without identifying the partner either consciously or unconsciously with a parent, without wishing to torment or to be tormented, without accepting celibacy except for strongly convincing reasons, and without looking for another partner so long as his or her affection for the partner is reciprocated.

Neurotic characters

The neurotic character operates under a principle of compulsive moral regulation due to chronic energy stasis.

The neurotic character's work and life is permeated by struggle to suppress original and even more basic urges or tendencies. The various forms of neurotic character correspond to the equally many ways of suppressing such urges or tendencies that the human being in question considers to be dangerous or is ashamed of. A feeling of inferiority may sometimes lead to a striving for power and honor; work is directed by such desires or by duty, rather than by a striving for joy and happiness.

His or her sex life is disturbed by impulses derived from pregenital wishes, so strong that they prevent the experience of full release during orgasm, or else genital wishes are so suppressed by prohibitions and a guilty conscience that they either inhibit a full release during orgasm or prevent the establishment of an adult sex life. Sexual discharge will leave him or her empty, unsatisfied, and not fully at peace, resulting in sensations of emptiness and a feeling of inferiority, a widespread phenomenon termed post-coital tristesse.

Muscular armor

Reich argued that if repression occurred, this energy, in the form of stored emotions or affects, was held back by muscular contraction or armor, which restricts and immobilizes the body and becomes the somatic core of neuroses, making full orgastic discharge impossible.

Reich defined muscular armor as: "The sum total of the muscular attitudes (chronic muscular spasms) which an individual develops as a block against the breakthrough of emotions and organ sensations, in particular anxiety, rage, and sexual excitation."

Muscular armor prevents the sexual climax from being experienced throughout the body. For example, forms of armoring are pulling back the pelvis or tightening the thigh and buttock muscles.

Moreover, Reich regarded the ego as playing an active part in the act of perception, since whereas some people perceive the gentle stroking of an erogenous zone as pleasurable, for others it is merely a tactile sensation.

Resolving armor

Main article: Vegetotherapy

Further information: Body psychotherapy, Neo-Reichian massage, Bioenergetic analysis, Gestalt therapy, and Primal therapy

Dissolving character and muscular rigidifications or armorings is the basic principle of Reichian vegetotherapy. This dissolution softens movement, eases breathing, and can also bring back the repressed memory of the childhood situation that caused the repression, Reich wrote.

The two goals of vegetotherapy are the attainment of orgastic potency during sexual intercourse and of the "orgasm reflex" during therapy. The orgasm reflex may be observed as waves of pleasure moving through the body, a series of spontaneous, involuntary movements, and signifies that the person is free of body armoring, entailing the ability to give and receive love in all its forms.

Implications for society

Prevention through social reform

The Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality, written in 1931, was Reich's first step in approaching the answer to the problem of mass neuroses in society, followed by The Mass Psychology of Fascism and The Sexual Revolution. The primary sociological issues with which Reich dealt included in particular the following three:

1. How to prevent neurosis through correct upbringing and education.
2. How to prevent sex-negative attitudes in society through sexual reform.
3. How to prevent authoritarian repression through general social reform (Boadella 1985: 62).

Reich considered orgastic potency to be opposed and undermined by all types of authoritarian or dictatorial regimes, organisations, or institutions that seek to destroy spontaneous decency and natural self-regulation of the vital energies through compulsive morality and compulsive work. In his view, an authoritarian upbringing forms the psychological basis in the masses of people in all nations, as they are taught to be blindly loyal and nationalistic. In his view, authority is easier, the line of least resistance.

In Reich's view, to move from authoritarian, formal democracy to genuine democracy, social life must be based on self-determination, natural sociality and morality, earthly happiness in love and pleasurable work. This requires being capable of bearing full responsibility for social existence and rationally determining one's own life, and being psychically independent. It is not a static condition of freedom that can be given, granted or guaranteed to a group, but is a dynamic and continual process of dealing with the development of new ideas, new forms of living and new discoveries. The young must always be able to decide what they take over and what they discard, and be prepared to hear the same from their children.

This implies replacing sexual chaos, prostitution, sex trafficking and pornography with natural happiness in love secured by society. Reich cited Bronisław Malinowski's study of the culture in the Trobriand Islands, such as in his The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia, as evidence that non-authoritarian societies lacking compulsive morality and duty are possible and correlate with natural moral self-regulation.

Negative social effects

Reich coined the term "emotional plague" to capture the destructive actions of a neurotic character on the social scene. Though specifically a social phenomenon, its ability to spread depends on the prevalence of individual neurotic character structures, that is, the prevalence of orgastic impotence (Reich 1973 [1933]: 508). As Reich put it, whereas the neurotic character is content with a passive social attitude, the emotional plague character has a “life-destructive social activity” (Reich 1973 [1933]: 512). The emotional plague was for Reich literally a disease, a "biopathy," though one which manifests itself in social life (Reich 1973 [1933]: 504-5). The emotional plague has a special group dynamic when the destructive, pathological impulses of a group of neurotic characters become mutually reinforcing (Boadella 1985: 215).

“Emotional” refers to the element of social irrationalism in people (Boadella 1985: 215). That is, the reasoning of the emotional plague-afflicted functions only to rationalise an irrational, predetermined conclusion (Reich 1973 [1933]: 511-3). “Plague” refers to the contagious, infectious nature and the difficulty of resisting it. Thus, whereas the neurotic character struggles with feelings of guilt in order to suppress destructive drives (e.g. a torture fantasy), people with the emotional plague unconsciously provide each other with a social alibi to act out these suppressed drives. That is, they adopt a group ideology that rationalises acting on irrational, secondary drives. An example would be the Salem witch trials in which dissident Christians were tortured and executed by their own group (Boadella 1985: 215).

Bio-electric experiments

In a series of experiments, Reich found that the orgasm had characteristics of a bioelectrical phenomenon and drew the conclusion that the genitals in coitus constitute an electrolytic system: "The male and female circulations and the mutually stimulating plasmatic excitations in the autonomic nervous systems represent the inherent sources of electrical charge on the organs of sexual contact. The equalization of the potential gradient occurs between the two surface potentials—penile epidermis and vaginal mucosa." In a further experiment, Reich found that the same bioelectric energy displayed an antithetic function: if it flows outward to the skin surface, causing a build-up of charge at the skin, it is experienced as pleasure; in contrast, if it flows inward, away from the skin surface, resulting in a lowering of charge at the skin, then it is experienced as an increase in central tension or anxiety. To experience a pleasurable and full orgastic discharge of excitation, the energy needs to reach the skin, specifically the vulva. A clitoral climax could only provide a local response.

Orgone energy accumulator

A common misconception about Reich's later developed "orgone energy accumulator" is that it could provide orgastic potency to those sitting inside the device. Reich wrote the opposite: "The orgone accumulator, as has been clearly stated in the relevant publications (The Cancer Biopathy, etc.), cannot provide orgastic potency."

Reception

In the psychoanalytic movement

When Reich's first introduced the orgasm theory at the psychoanalytic congress in Salzburg he was congratulated by Karl Abraham for successfully formulating the economic element of neurosis. However, Reich's presentation of the orgasm theory came exactly when psychoanalysis was moving away from the original Freudian instinct theory based on psychic energy. In his 1926 book Inhibitions, Symptoms, Anxiety Freud completely abandoned his earlier position and wrote: "Anxiety never arises from repressed libido" Though Freud never formally rejected Reich's orgasm theory, he was ambivalent in his reception. When Reich presented him the manuscript of Die Funktion des Orgasmus in May 1926, Freud replied "That thick?" Later that year Freud wrote Reich that the book was "valuable, rich in observation and thought," but he also referred to the orgasm theory as Reich's 'hobby-horse'.

From here on there were three different reactions to Reich's orgasm theory. Firstly, many of the younger analysts recognised it as an important and fundamental innovation. Thus, Prof. Arthur Kronfeld wrote in his 1927 review of Die Funktion des Orgasmus: "In this extremely valuable and instructive work the author has really succeeded in broadening as well as deepening Freud's theory of sex and of the neuroses. He broadens it by clarifying for the first time the significance of the genital orgasm for the development and the whole structure of the neuroses; he deepens it by giving Freud's theory of the actual neuroses an exact psychological and physiological meaning. I do not hesitate to consider this work of Reich's the most valuable contribution since Freud's the Ego and the Id. The most prominent Freudian to make clinical use of the concept orgastic potency was Edward Hitschmann, the Director of the Psychoanalytic Polyclinic.

Secondly, a group of analysts strongly opposed Reich's views for theoretical or personal reasons. The two most important being Paul Federn, Reich's training assistant, and Hermann Nunberg.

Thirdly, some refutations were put forward, but even the two most serious criticisms misrepresented Reich's concept. Paul Schilder wrote that he had "seen full orgastic potency comparatively often in severe neurosis," but defined orgastic potency as "able to have a climax," which strongly opposed Reich's definition. Abram Kardiner commented on a case that the patient showed "no disturbance of orgastic potency or performance, only difficulties in adjusting to females," which goes against Reich's emphasis on the ability to fully relate to the partner.

Opponents to Reich's concept, though referring to it as "Reich's heresy", were at this time in a minority. One review it was stated: "few, if any, psycho-analysts will completely disagree with these formulations."

Defining orgasms: Kinsey, and Masters and Johnson, etc.

The concepts of the sexual acme used in the famous 1948 and 1953 Kinsey reports and the 1966 research by Masters and Johnson were different from the one used by Reich. Reich directly related orgastic potency with the total response system, the personality, contact-ability, total psychosomatic health of a person. In contrast, Kinsey and Masters and Johnson restricted their conclusions to phenomena that all sexual climaxes had in common. Examples of distinctions Reich made but which were not pursued by Kinsey and Masters and Johnson include the difference between local and total bodily responses, and between voluntary and involuntary movements. Thus, Boadella argues, they "did not contradict in any way the position that Reich had come to. They merely ... [focused] on those processes that orgastically potent and orgastically impotent responses shared."

Defining orgasm

For example, early in his work Kinsey introduces the theoretical distinction between 'orgastic pleasure' and 'orgasm'. On the same page where he refers to Reich's work, Kinsey defines orgasm as follows: "In the present study all cases of ejaculation have been taken as evidence of orgasm, without regard to the different levels at which the orgasms have occurred" Regarding the female orgasm, Kinsey writes: "Many psychologists and psychiatrists, emphasizing the satisfaction that may result from sexual experience, suggest that the after-affects of this release from sexual tension may be a chief source of those satisfactions. They are therefore inclined to extend the term orgasm to cover both the release from tentions and the after-effect of that release. There are, however, several advantages in restricting the concept of orgasm to the sudden and abrupt release itself, and it is in that sense that we have used the term." In other words, Kinsey focusses on the physiology, anatomy and technique involved in inducing a discharge of tension. Therefore, Kinsey's usage of the term orgasm covers behaviour that in the Reichian typology ranges from healthy to disturbed behaviour.

Mature orgasm

See also: Orgasm § Clitoral_and_vaginal_variabilities

In 1905 Freud developed the psychoanalytic distinction between clitoral and vaginal orgasm, the latter being identified with maturity and femininity. However, according to Boadella, a clinically grounded qualitative distinction between mature and immature sexuality was only introduced by Reich with the concept orgastic potency. Thus, while Masters and Johnson (1963) wrote regarding this question: "Are clitoral and vaginal orgasms truly separate and anatomic entities? From a biological point of view the answer to this question is an unequivocal NO", their findings do not contradict Reich's position, because they focussed on the phenomena shared by all sexual climaxes.

Similar observations

Kinsey writes: "Many persons may exert some deliberate control over the normal course of their sexual responses," Kinsey continues, "By controlling the breathing rate, by holding muscles in continuous tension", and through other methods, "it is possible to delay the upsurge of response which carried the physiological response to climax." Similarly, Masters and Johnson (1966): "The striated muscles of the abdomen and buttocks frequently are contracted voluntarily by women in conscious effort to elevate sexual tensions, particularly in an effort to break through from high plateau to orgasmic attainment."

J. Marmor (1954) is the closest attempt to make a distinction similar to the one Reich made, though it was not developed in a further theory. Marmor distinguished "cortical inhibition" and "cortical facilitation". If the former was strong (due to fear, anxiety, guilt feelings, etc.), he argued, that no or only a spinal-level orgasmic response is possible. If inhibitions are absent and there is adequate psychological response and physical relaxation, then a "full-fledged consummatory orgasm" was possible.

Reichian legacy

The two colleagues of Reich who build most on Reich's orgasm theory and orgastic potency are Philipson and Lowen. They emphasised the importance of human relationship in orgastic functions.

Tage Philipson, in his 1952 book Kaerlighedslivet: Natur Eller Unnatur, studied natural and unnatural love-life. He wrote that "in healthy people sexuality and love will always be associated together. Sex will come from the heart and return to the heart. . . . the fully healthy person must be the person with completely free love feelings. . . . When this is the case other feelings will also be able to stream through the entire organism: hate, sorrow, anxiety, etc., and the orgasm, as the highest point of sexuality, will also be able to affect the entire organism."

Alexander Lowen in his 1966 book Love and Orgasm distinguishes between achieving orgasm in the Kinsey meaning of sexual performance, and the entering into a love relationship as a whole human, similar to Reich. Like Reich, Lowen considers the latter to be the expression of health, not a means to it.

Theodore Wolfe, an American pioneer in psychosomatic medicine and later colleague of Reich, thought that anxiety was the cause of both neuroses and psychosomatic distortions. When reading Reich's Der Funktion des Orgasmus he found in it the key to understanding the dynamics of this relationship.

Others

According to the most definitive biography of Reich, many of Reich's ideas and findings have found their way into various disciplines, although often in quite different forms. Moreover, Reich's view that the capacity to unite tender and sensuous feelings is important for a healthy love relationship is not new. Freud had noted this as early as 1912. However, the involuntary physical aspects of the full genital discharge are new, and the concept of orgastic potency and the manner in which "he connected a series of psychological, social, and biological findings with the presence or absence of this function" was unique to Reich.

In a review of Reich's sexual theories, psychiatrist Elsworth Baker writes:

Wilhelm Reich has been incredibly misunderstood and maligned, and almost everything he has written has been misinterpreted. Particularly is this true of his sexual theories. The usual distortion is that he advocated "free" sexual expression—"obey that impulse"—amounting to a wild and frantic promiscuity ever seeking a mystical, ecstatic orgasm that is supposed to cure all neuroses and even physical ills.

However, on the contrary, Baker notes:

Reich could only conclude that sex, which was formerly believed to be solely for reproductive purposes, had the vitally important function of maintaining a stable energy level within the organism. Sexual activity is thus of little value for emotional health unless it is experienced with pleasurable excitation reaching a peak at the orgasm, when the excitation rapidly diminishes. . . . The healthy person does not need as much sexual outlet as the armored because he receives satisfaction and is not forever trying to attain it.

Criticism

One specific criticism of orgastic potency is that Reich never found a method to measure the "totality of surrender" during an orgasm both directly and objectively. A direct subjective measure existed: the person having experienced the "total surrender" during the orgasm him or herself. One direct objective measure also existed, the "orgasm reflex", but Reich had pointed out that it can appear in a patient with orgastic impotence. Reich's main way to empirically establish orgastic potency was through several indirect objective measures, such as "muscular armor" and forms of neurotic "character armor".

Works

Reich, Wilhelm

• 1924 (1986): Further Remarks on the Therapeutic Significance of Genital Libido, German title: Die Therapeutische Bedeutung des Genitallibidos. Part of Early Writings, Volume One. FSG ed.: ISBN 0374513473.
• 1927 (1980): Genitality in the Theory and Therapy of Neurosis German title: Die Funktion Des Orgasmus. FSG ed.: ISBN 0374516413.

See also

• Body psychotherapy
• Human sexual response cycle
• Libido
• Psychosexual development
• Sexual dysfunction

Notes

Footnotes

Citations

References

Baker, Elsworth (1986), "Sexual Theories of Wilhelm Reich", Journal of Orgonomy, 20 (2): 175–194, ISSN 0022-3298, OCLC 1754708, archived from the original (PDF) on 6 June 2012.

Boadella, David (1985), Wilhelm Reich: The Evolution of His Work, London{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link).

Corty, Eric W. (2008), "Canadian and American Sex Therapists' Perceptions of Normal and Abnormal Ejaculatory Latencies: How Long Should Intercourse Last?", The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 5 (5), Jenay, M; Guardiani BS: 1251–1256, doi:10.1111/j.1743-6109.2008.00797.x {{citation}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help).

D'Aloia, Alessandro (15 October 2004), Marxism and Psychoanalysis - Notes on Wilhelm Reich's Life and Works, In Defence of Marxism, archived from the original on 7 June 2012{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link).

Daniels, Victor (10 May 2008), "Lecture notes on Wilhelm Reich and His Influence", Victor Daniels' Website in The Psychology Department, Sonoma State University, archived from the original on 6 June 2012{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link).

Isaacs, Kenneth S. (1999), "Searching for Science in Psychoanalysis", Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 29 (3): 235–252, doi:10.1023/A:1021973219022, [orgone] was quickly discredited.

Kinsey, Alfred (1948), Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male, & Others, New York{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link).

Kinsey, Alfred (1953), Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female, & Others, New York{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link).

Konia, Charles (1987), "A Patient Brought to Genitality", Journal of Orgonomy, 21 (2): 172–184, ISSN 0022-3298, OCLC 1754708, archived from the original (PDF) on 6 June 2012.

Kovel, Joel (1991), A Complete Guide to Therapy: From Psychoanalysis to Behaviour Modification, London: Penguin Books, ISBN 0140136312.

Lowen, Alexander (1966), Love and Orgasm, New York & London{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link).

Marmor, Judd (1954), "Some Considerations Concerning Orgasm in the Female", Psychosomatic medicine, 16 (3): 240–245, archived from the original (PDF) on 16 September 2012.

Masters, W.H. (1963), "The sexual response cycle of the human female III. The Clitoris: anatomic and clinical considerations", West. Jo. Surg. Obst. & Gynec., Johnson, V. E..

Masters, W.H. (1966), Human Sexual Response, Johnson, V. E., Boston, USA{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link).

Raknes, Ola (1944), "Sex-economy: A theory of living functioning", International Journal of Sex-Economy and Orgone-Research, 3 (1), (under pseudonym Carl Arnold): 17–37, OCLC 5917664. See here for a summary on Xiandos.info, archived from the original on 9 June 2012. {{citation}}: External link in |postscript= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link)

Reich, Wilhelm (1961), Selected Writings: An Introduction to Orgonomy, Foreword by Mary Boyd Higgins, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 0374501971.

Reich, Wilhelm (1971), The Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 0374509395. (Tr. of Der Einbruch der Sexualmoral, 1932){{citation}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link).

Reich, Wilhelm (1973), Character Analysis, Tr. Vincent R. Carfagno, London: Vision Press, ISBN 0374509395. 3rd enlarged ed. Originally published in 1933{{citation}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link).

Reich, Wilhelm (1980) [Published in 1927 as Die Funktion des Orgasmus: Zur Psychopathologie und zur Soziologie des Geschlechtslebens], Genitality in the Theory and Therapy of Neurosis, Trans. by Philip Schmitz, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Note: not to be confused with the 1942 The Function of the Orgasm, Volume I of The Discovery of the Orgone{{citation}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link).

Reich, Wilhelm (1983), Higgins, Mary; Raphael, Chester M. (eds.), Children of the Future: On the Prevention of Sexual Pathology, Trans. by Derek Jordan, Inge Jordan and Beverly Placzek, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 0-374-51846-7.

Reich, Wilhelm (1999) [First English tr. published 1942], The Function of the Orgasm: Sex-Economic Problems of Biological Energy, The Discovery of the Orgone, vol. Volume I, Trans. Vincent R. Carfagno, London: Souvenir Press, ISBN 0-285-64970-1 {{citation}}: |volume= has extra text (help).

Roazen, Paul (1985), "Fury on Earth: A Biography of Wilhelm Reich. Myron Sharaf. New York: St Martin's Press/Marek, 1983, xiii + 550 pp.", Psychoanalytic Review, 72, National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis: 668–671, ISSN 0033-2836, archived from the original on 8 June 2012.

Rycroft, Charles (1971), Reich, London: Fontana.

Schouten, B.W. (2010), "Erectile Dysfunction in the Community", J Sex Med, 7, Bohnen AM; Groeneveld FP; Dohle GR; Thomas S; Bosch JL: 2547–53, doi:10.1111/j.1743-6109.2010.01849.x, PMID 20497307 {{citation}}: Text "issue 7" ignored (help).

Sharaf, Myron (1994) [unabridged republication of the 1983 New York: St. Martin's Press ed.], Fury on Earth: A Biography of Wilhelm Reich (1st Da Capo Press ed.), Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press, ISBN 0-306-80575-8.

Time Magazine (18 November 1957), "Obituary notice for Wilhelm Reich", Time Magazine, archived from the original on 8 June 2012{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link).

Wilcox, Roger M. (20 March 2001), "Orgastic Potency as the criterion for emotional health", A Skeptical Scrutiny of the Works and Theories of Wilhelm Reich, Roger M. Wilcox's Home Page, archived from the original on 6 June 2012{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link).

Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust (4 January 2011), The Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality, archived from the original on 6 June 2012{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link).

Further reading

• Baker, Elsworth (1986), Sexual Theories of Wilhelm Reich, archived from the original (PDF) on 6 June 2012.
• Raknes, Ola (1944), Sex-economy: A Theory of Living Functioning. For a summary see here on Xiandos.info, archived from the original on 9 June 2012 {{citation}}: External link in |postscript= (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link).
• Reich, Wilhelm (1963), Selected Writings: An Introduction to Orgonomy, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 0374501963.

External links

• Documentary "Man's Right to Know" (28 min) Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust. An introduction to the life and work of Wilhelm Reich.
• Documentary Who is Afraid of Wilhelm Reich ("Wer Hat Angst vor Wilhelm Reich") (1:34 hr), Antonin Svoboda in coproduction with Austrian TV.