Wilhelm Reich

He was an Austrian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst (March, 24.th 1897 - November, 3.rd 1957).

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, Robert Anton Wilson, and William Burroughs.

He is best known for his studies on the link between human sexuality and emotions, and 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. Labelled a communist Jew by the Nazis, he fled to Scandinavia, before taking refuge in the United States in 1939. But in 1947, following a series of critical articles about orgone in "The New Republic" and "Harper's Monthly Magazine", the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began an investigation into his claims, and, in 1954, won an injunction prohibiting the interstate sale of orgone accumulators. Two years later, Reich was charged with contempt of court for violating the injunction. He insisted on conducting his own defence, which included sending copies of his books to the judge.
In June 1956, he was sentenced to two years in Federal prison. Later that year, several tons of his publications were burned by agents of the FDA.
Reich died in his sleep of heart failure in the federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, shortly before he was due to apply for parole. Not one psychiatric or established scientific journal carried an obituary.

Two of his major works:
– Massenpsychologie des Faschismus, 1933 (original Marxist edition, banned by both the Nazis and the Communists); Mass Psychology of Fascism;
– Listen, Little Man!, 1945.

For further details on his life and work (his bibliography is quite extensive), please confer this article in Wikipedia.

A título de repto, eis algumas citações de Escuta, Zé Ninguém!
(Publicações Dom Quixote, Lisboa, 1974)

«Deixas que os homens no poder o assumam em teu nome. Mas tu mesmo nada dizes. Conferes aos homens que detêm o poder – quando não o conferes a importantes mal‑intencionados – mais poder ainda para te representarem. E só demasiado tarde reconheces que te enganaram uma vez mais.»

«Tu mesmo te desprezas, Zé Ninguém. Dizes: «Quem sou eu para ter opinião própria, para decidir da minha própria vida e ter o mundo por meu?» E tens razão. Quem és tu para reclamar direitos sobre a tua vida?»

«Queres saber o que és, Zé Ninguém? Ouves os anúncios publicitários dos teus laxantes, das tuas pastas de dentes e desodorizantes. Mas não ouves a música da propaganda. Não distingues a abissal estupidez e o mau gosto de coisas que se destinam a ficar-te no ouvido.»

«Sei que és uma criatura capaz, sólida, com qualidades de trabalho, tal como uma abelha ou uma formiga. Tudo o que tentei foi pôr-te à mostra o que tens de medíocre e te destrói a vida há já milhares de anos. És grande, Zé Ninguém, quando não és medíocre e mesquinho. A tua grandeza é a única esperança que nos resta a todos. És grande quando desempenhas com gosto a tua tarefa, quando trabalhas na alegria a madeira, quando constróis, quando pintas e embelezas os teus espaços, quando trabalhas a terra, quando contemplas o céu na quietude e te comprazes na existência dos animais simples, no orvalho, quando danças e cantas, quando amas a beleza dos teus filhos, o corpo do homem ou da mulher que escolheste; quando vais até um planetário tentar entender o espaço ou a uma biblioteca ler o que pensaram da vida outros homens e mulheres. És grande na tua velhice, com o teu neto no colo, dizendo-lhe como foi outrora, respondendo à sua curiosidade confiante. És grande quando és mãe, embalando o teu filho nos braços, o coração cheio de esperança de que para ele venham melhores dias, a felicidade que, hora a hora, lhe vais construindo.»

RIC