Core Reichian Concepts

[Excerpt from the Foreword to The Function of the Orgasm by Wilhelm Reich]

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The theory of sex-economy and its investigation of living phenomena can be stated in a few sentences.

Psychic health depends upon orgastic potency, i.e., upon the degree to which one can surrender to and experience the climax of excitation in the natural sexual act. It is founded upon the healthy character attitude of the individual’s capacity for love. Psychic illnesses are the result of a disturbance of the natural ability to love. In the case of orgastic impotence, from which the overwhelming majority of people suffer, damming-up of biological energy occurs and becomes the source of irrational actions. The essential requirement to cure psychic disturbances is the re-establishment of the natural capacity for love. It is dependent upon social as well as psychic conditions.

Psychic illnesses are the consequences of the sexual chaos of society. For thousands of years, this chaos has had the function of psychically subjecting man to the prevailing conditions of existence, of internalizing the external mechanization of life. It has served to bring about the psychic anchoring of a mechanized and authoritarian civilization by making man incapable of functioning independently.

The vital energies regulate themselves naturally, without compulsive duty or compulsive morality—both of which are sure signs of existing antisocial impulses. Antisocial actions are the expression of secondary drives. These drives are produced by the suppression of natural life, and they are at variance with natural sexuality.

People who are brought up with a negative attitude toward life and sex acquire a pleasure anxiety, which is physiologically anchored in chronic muscular spasms. This neurotic pleasure anxiety is the basis on which life-negating, dictator-producing views of life are reproduced by the people themselves. It is the core of the fear of an independent, freedom-oriented way of life. This fear becomes the most significant source of strength for every form of political reaction, and for the domination of the majority of working men and women by individual persons or groups. It is a biophysiological fear, and it constitutes the central problem of the psychosomatic field of investigation. It has been until now the greatest obstruction to the investigation of the involuntary functions of life, which the neurotic person can experience only in a mysterious and fear-ridden way.

The character structure of modern man, who reproduces a six-thousand-year-old patriarchal authoritarian culture, is typified by characterological armoring against his inner nature and against the social misery which surrounds him. This characterological armoring is the basis of isolation, indigence, craving for authority, fear of responsibility, mystic longing, sexual misery, and neurotically impotent rebelliousness, as well as pathological tolerance. Man has alienated himself from, and has grown hostile toward, life. This alienation is not of a biological but of a socio-economic origin. It is not found in the stages of human history prior to the development of patriarchy.

Since the emergence of patriarchy, the natural pleasure of work and activity has been replaced by compulsive duty. The average structure of masses of people has been transformed into a distorted structure marked by impotence and fear of life. This distorted structure not only forms the psychological basis of authoritarian dictatorship, it enables these dictatorships to justify themselves by pointing to human attitudes such as irresponsibility and childishness. The international catastrophe through which we are living is the ultimate consequence of this alienation from life.

The structuring of masses of people to be blindly obedient to authority is brought about not by natural parental love, but by the authoritarian family. The suppression of the sexuality of small children and adolescents is the chief means of producing this obedience.

Nature and culture, instinct and morality, sexuality and achievement become incompatible as a result of the split in the human structure. The unity and congruity of culture and nature, work and love, morality and sexuality, longed for from time immemorial, will remain a dream as long as man continues to condemn the biological demand for natural (orgastic) sexual gratification. Genuine democracy and freedom founded on consciousness and responsibility are also doomed to remain an illusion until this demand is fulfilled. Helpless subjugation to chaotic social conditions will continue to typify human existence. The destruction of life by means of coercive education and war will prevail.

In the field of psychotherapy, I worked out the technique of character-analytic vegetotherapy. Its basic principle is the re-establishment of biopsychic motility through the dissolution of the character and muscular rigidifications (“armorings”). This technique of treating neuroses was experimentally substantiated by the discovery of the bioelectric nature of sexuality and anxiety. Sexuality and anxiety are functions of the living organism operating in opposite directions: pleasurable expansion and anxious contraction.

The orgasm formula which directs sex-economic research is as follows : MECHANICAL TENSION -> BIOELECTRIC CHARGE -> BIOELECTRIC DISCHARGE -> MECHANICAL RELAXATION. It proved to be the formula of living functioning as such. It led to the experimental investigation of the organization of living from non-living matter, to experimental bion research, and, more recently, to the discovery of orgone radiation. Research in the field of sexuality and bions opened a new approach to the problem of cancer and a number of other disturbances of vegetative life.

The immediate cause of many devastating diseases can be traced to the fact that man is the sole species which does not fulfill the natural law of sexuality. The death of millions of people in war is the result of the overt, social negation of life. This negation, in turn, is the expression and consequence of psychic and somatic disturbances of the life function.

The sexual process, i.e., the expansive process of biological pleasure, is the productive life process per se.

This is saying a lot all at once, and it sounds almost too simple. This “simplicity” constitutes the secret which some people sense in my work. I want to try to describe how the difficulties were solved which have blocked human insight into these problems until now. I very much hope to persuade the reader that there was no magic involved. On the contrary, my theory is general but unadmitted human knowledge about the functioning of life. It is to be ascribed to the universal alienation from life that the facts and relationships which I discovered have been overlooked or consistently concealed.

The history of sex-economy would be incomplete without mentioning the part played in it by its friends and coworkers. They will understand why, in the scope of the present volume, I have to refrain from paying due respect to their accomplishments. I can assure everyone who fought and often suffered for sex-economy that, without their efforts, the entire development would not have been possible.

This presentation of sex-economy proceeds exclusively from the perspective of the European conditions which led to catastrophe. The victory of the dictatorships is ascribable to the psychic illness of the European masses who were not capable of mastering any of the various forms of democracy, economically, socially, or psychologically. I have not been in the United States long enough to judge to what extent my presentation does or does not apply to American conditions. The conditions which I have in mind are not solely external human relationships and social circumstances; what I have in mind is the deep psychic structure of American men and women and their society. It requires time to gain an understanding of this structure.

I can foresee that the English-language edition of this book will be objected to on various grounds. The many years of experience I had in Europe enabled me to use certain indications to assess the importance of an attack, a critique, or an expression of praise. Since there is no reason to assume that the reactions of certain circles in this country will be fundamentally different from those of certain circles in Europe, I should like to answer possible objections in advance.

Sex-economy has nothing to do with any one of the existing political organizations or ideologies. The political concepts which separate the various strata and classes of society are not applicable to sex-economy. The social distortion of natural sexuality and its suppression in children and adolescents are universal human conditions, transcending all state and group boundaries.

Sex-economy has been persecuted by the representatives of political parties of all persuasions. My publications have been prohibited by the communists as well as the fascists; they have been attacked and denounced by police authorities as well as by the socialist and bourgeois liberals. On the other hand, they have met with recognition and respect in all strata and circles of the population. The elucidation of the function of the orgasm, particularly, was well received by professional-scientific and cultural-political groups of all kinds.

Sexual suppression, biological rigidity, moralism, and asceticism are not confined to certain classes or strata of the population. They are found everywhere. I know of clergymen who willingly accept the distinction between natural and unnatural sexuality, and who acknowledge the scientific view that there is a parallel between the concept of God and the law of nature; I know of other clergymen who look upon the elucidation and concrete realization of child and adolescent sexuality as a threat to the existence of the Church and hence take strong measures to combat it. Praise and hatred quoted the same ideology in their defense. Liberalism and democracy felt as threatened as the dictatorship of the proletariat, the honor of socialism as much as the honor of the German woman. In reality, only one attitude and only one kind of social and moral arrangement is threatened by the elucidation of the function of life, namely the authoritarian dictatorial regime of every kind which seeks through compulsive morality and compulsive work to destroy the spontaneous decency and natural self-regulation of the vital energies.

However—and let us put the matter straight this time—it is not solely in totalitarian states that we find authoritarian dictatorship. It is found in the Church as well as in academic organizations, among the communists as well as in parliamentary governments. It is a universal human tendency produced by the suppression of life; authoritarian upbringing constitutes the psychological basis in the masses of people of all nations for the acceptance and establishment of dictatorship. Its basic elements are mystification of the life process, concrete helplessness of a material and social nature, fear of assuming the responsibility for determining one’s own life, and, therefore, craving for illusionary security and authority, whether actively or passively. The genuine, age-old striving for the democratization of social life is based on self-determination, on natural sociality and morality, on pleasurable work and on earthly happiness in love. It regards every illusion as a danger. Hence, it will not only not fear the natural-scientific comprehension of life, it will make use of it to master decisive problems of the development of human structure in a scientific and practical and not in an illusionary way. Efforts are being made everywhere to transform formal democracy into a genuine democracy of all working men and women, into a work democracy, in keeping with the natural organization of the work process.

In the field of mental hygiene, the first and foremost task is to replace sexual chaos, prostitution, pornographic literature, and sexual trafficking, with natural happiness in love secured by society. This implies neither the intent “to destroy the family” nor “to undermine morality.” Family and morality are already undermined by the compulsive family and compulsive morality. Professionally, we are faced with the task of mastering the infirmities, in the form of psychic illnesses, caused by sexual and familial chaos. To master the psychic plague, it is necessary to draw a clear-cut distinction between the natural love which exists between parents and children and every form of familial compulsion. The endemic illness, familitis, destroys everything which honest human strivings are attempting to achieve.

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“Morality” is dictatorial when it lumps natural feelings of life together with pornography. In doing so, it perpetuates sexual smut and blights natural happiness in love, whether this is what it intends or not. It is necessary to raise a strong protest when those who determine their social behavior on the basis of inner laws instead of external compulsive codes are labeled immoral. A man and a woman are husband and wife not because they have received the sacrament, but because they feel themselves to be husband and wife. The inner and not the external law is the yardstick of genuine freedom. Moralistic bigotry cannot be fought with another form of compulsive morality, but only with knowledge of the natural law of the sexual process. Natural moral behavior presupposes that the natural life process can develop freely. On the other hand, compulsive morality and pathological sexuality go hand in hand.

The line of compulsion is the line of least resistance. It is easier to demand discipline and to enforce it authoritatively than it is to bring up children to take pleasure in doing independent work and to have a natural attitude toward sexuality. It is easier to declare oneself to be an omniscient Fuhrer ordained by God, and to decree what millions of people are to think and do, than it is to expose oneself to the struggle between rationality and irrationality in the clash of opinions. It is easier to insist on legal fulfillment of respect and love than it is to win friendship through humane behavior. It is easier to sell one’s independence for material security than it is to lead a responsible, independent existence and to be master of oneself. It is more convenient to dictate the behavior of subordinates than it is to guide this behavior, while preserving what is singular in it. This is also why dictatorship is always easier than genuine democracy. This is why the complacent democratic leader envies the dictator and incompetently seeks to imitate him. It is easy to stand up for what is commonplace. It is difficult to stand up for truth.

Hence, those who do not have or have lost faith in the life process are at the mercy of the subterranean influence of the fear of life which produces dictatorship. The life process is inherently “rational.” It becomes distorted and grotesque when it is not allowed to develop freely. When the life process is distorted, it can only engender fear. Hence, only knowledge of the life process can dispel fear.

Our world has indeed become out of joint. But no matter how the bloody struggles of the present shape the centuries to come, the fact remains that the science of life is more powerful than tyranny and all forms of life-negation. It was Galileo and not Nero who laid the foundation of technology; Pasteur and not Napoleon who combated diseases; Freud and not Schicklgruber who plumbed the psychic depths. It was these scientists, in short, who ensured our existence. The others have merely misused the achievements of great men to destroy the life process. The roots of natural science go infinitely deeper than any transitory fascist tumult.