Wilhelm Reich

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. He promoted adolescent sexuality, the availability of contraceptives and abortion, and the importance for women of economic independence. One 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. Theologian Robert S. Corrington emphasizes Reich's ability to synthesize material from psychoanalysis, cultural anthropology, economics, sociology, and ethics.

He was also a controversial figure, who came to be viewed by the psychoanalytic establishment as having "gone astray," or succumbed to mental illness. He is best known for his studies on the link between human sexuality and neuroses, emphasizing "orgastic potency" as the foremost criterion for psycho-physical health. He said he had discovered 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 in 1934 and subsequently to the 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 conducted 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 FDA. He died of heart failure in jail just over a year later, days before he was due to apply for parole.