Blackwell Reference Online

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Wilhelm Reich was a controversial theorist of the early and mid-twentieth century who attempted to wed the ideas of Freud and Marx through a radical theory of the “sexual revolution” (a term he coined in the 1920s). His Marxism led him to the Communist Party in Austria, and to being a member of the Psychoanalytic Society. These organizations were at mutual odds, and Reich was soon expelled from both. Reich's theoretical work combined a social theory of sex economy – an economy which may hinder, gratify, regulate, or promote sexuality – a theory of characterology, and an account of both personal and social change due to orgasmic liberation. He provided a critique of the contemporary society, which he saw as creating a fascist, authoritarian character, machine-like and subservient to the existing social order. For Reich, political analysis was equated with sexual liberation. At the core of his hydraulic theory, Reich argued that it was “sexual energy which governs the structure of human feeling and thinking … it is the life energy per se. Its suppression means disturbance of fundamental life functions” (1969 [1935]: xxv). From the working of the libido, Reich stressed the development of character-analysis. His most famous (notorious) theory stressed the existence of the orgone, a pale blue liquid that needed regular discharge through sexual relations. For societies and individuals ... log in or subscribe to read full text