Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18057 in Books
• Published on: 1980-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

Customer Reviews

Neglected masterpiece
Conventional wisdom has it that the firest two-thirds of this treatise on character analysis improved psychoanalytic technique, focusing on character-based resistances rather than just on interpreting content--associations, dreams, etc. True enough, but the last third, which analysts and critics say represents Reich's slippage into maddness, is even more brilliant and farsighted. Here, Reich moves into the area of bioenergy and body-based psychotherapy. He presages some modern developments in psychotherapy, and in many respects, moves ahead of where mainstream therapy resides today. His bioenergy/therapy integration was also a forerunner of much of today's alternative mind-body and energy medicine modalities. Reich was not always the most trenchant writer, but here is writing his sharp, direct, and provocative. This is Reich's great contribution, still largely neglected.

Neglected masterpiece
Yes, I know, everyone's saying that, but it IS a neglected masterpiece.

The bulk of the book deals with "character armour" and "affect blocking" - the ways in which people suppress and shut down emotions by developing characteristic responses and forms of bodily rigidity. The last chapter, a case study on schizophrenia, is a masterpiece in its own right, perhaps the first example of anti-psychiatry and a forerunner of "Listen, Little Man" in Reich's angry and pointed denouncement of the stupidities of "homo normalis". For Reich, psychological normality is not at all the same thing as "mental health".

This is one of a very few theoretical books which directly engages with people's lives - you can read Reich and perhaps become aware of the character-armour you've developed yourself, the reactions of people around you and the genesis of apparently inexplicable social phenomena. In addition, Reich is a pioneer of the idea of bio-power; his analysis combines understandings of the body, the psyche and social relations in a manner unheard-of in his day. A truly magnificent book.

Neglected masterpiece
This important work is sometimes heralded as a landmark in psychoanalytic literature, as Reich changed aspects of analytic technique, focusing on character structure and not just the contents of free association, dreams, memories, etc. But any analyst or psychologist familiar with this work will usually say, but he went mad in the middle, and the last third of the book is nonsense. In fact, the last third--when he focuses on new forms of body-based treatment and theories regarding bioenergy, is even more brilliant. Take a gander at this section and you may recognize a mind way ahead of his times; Reich precedes and surpasses modern day notions of biological energy medicine, body-based psychotherapy, and emotional expression in healing. While his writing is usually uneven, here it is quite sharp, clear, and consistent throughout. We still have a lot to learn from Reich.