Character Analysis [Paperback]

Wilhelm Reich (Author), Vincent Carfagno (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1980 | ISBN-10: 0374509808 | ISBN-13: 978-0374509804 | Edition: 3 Reprint

Reich's classic work on the development and treatment of human character disorders, first published in 1933.

As a young clinician in the 1920s, Wihelm Reich expanded psychoanalytic resistance into the more inclusive technique of character analysis, in which the sum total of typical character attitudes developed by an individual as a blocking against emotional excitations became the object of treatment. These encrusted attitudes functioned as an "armor," which Reich later found to exist simultaneously in chronic muscular spasms. Thus mind and body came together and character analysis opened the way to a biophysical approach to disease and the prevention of it.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"It is clear that a prophylaxis of neuroses is out of the question unless it is prepared theoretically; in short, that the study of the dynamic and economic conditions of human structures is its most important prerequisite."--Wilhelm Reich

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 3 Reprint edition (November 1, 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374509808
• ISBN-13: 978-0374509804
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #86,816 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #31 in Books > Medical Books > Psychology > Psychoanalysis

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 76 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Neglected masterpiece September 2, 1998

By Henry E. Dreher

Format:Paperback

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.

44 of 47 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Neglected masterpiece August 29, 1998

By Henry E. Dreher

Format:Paperback

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.

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Deep insights, muddy presentation July 8, 2005

By Phil Myers

Format:Paperback

The first 300 pages of this book represent Reich's major contribution to Freudian psychotherapy. Reich argues for a new practice of "Character Analysis" that takes the whole personality under examination, superceding the old therapy that focused narrowly on alleviating painful 'symptoms'.

Our characters, Reich points out, are not created by chance or heredity, but represent the habitual strategies by which our egos come to cope with external threats, secure pleasure and sustenance, and regulate the flow of sexual energy. They are most definitively shaped by our interactions with our parents in the first few years of life and sexual development. Moreover, Reich argues, our characters are created and recreated in service of systems of social and class domination; thus sexual psychology and class struggle are inextricable.

Chalquist's glib distortion of Reich's project in the comment below is typical of the attacks Reich's work was subject to in the vicious campaigns to to quash his influence by Nazis, the Psychoanalytic establishment, and the Authoritarian left alike. Nowhere does Reich suggest that simply having more sex is the solution to social problems. Rather, he asserts that widespread healthy sex-life is both a necessary condition and an inevitable result of successful class struggle and social emancipation. For those interested in what this means concretely for social movements, his book Sex-Pol is highly recommended.

The typology of Characters that Reich draws up in the closing chapters is vague and ill-presented, leading me to suspect that the distinctions and psycho-sexual mechanisms he was describing weren't clear even in his own mind.... And yet there are occassional flashes of insight into behavior that I immediately recognized as true of myself and my friends and family.

Reich's insights have deep ramifications for parenting, schooling, and political organizing, and were formative on the work of the New Left. this book is highly recommended for people interested in such questions.

The last sections of the book are concerned with Orgone research, which I haven't investigated myself but which seem pretty wacky. Read more ›

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Reich's place in history July 4, 2010

By Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall

Format:Paperback

I have been teaching psychiatric and psychological trainees how to perform psychodynamically oriented psychotherapy for more than 30 years. In this context, CHARACTER ANALYSIS has been an indispensible reference in demonstrating specific techniques for actively interpreting transference. Other parts of the book are also extremely helpful in demonstrating how personality and character develop response to specific parenting styles.

What many contemporary psychiatrists and psychologists fail to recognize is that Reich - while a student and contemporary of Freud's - clearly departed from Freud in his belief that psychotherapy needed to focus on the unconscious defenses associated with specific personality styles. Whereas Freud himself was singlemindedly focused on neurotic symptoms stemming from specific traumatic events.

Obviously in my view, the chapter on transference is the best in the book, especially as Reich insists on very active interpretations of the transference from the moment it presents. Which, as he explains, is always via some violation of the Basic Rule (the Basic Rule in psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy is that the patient makes a contract that he will say whatever comes to mind without self censoring). It's a set up - because every patient breaks the Basic Rule during the very first session by not mentioning thoughts that are critical of the therapist. The example Reich gives is a patient who decides he doesn't like the paintings in your waiting room or the shape of your nose - but is afraid of telling you (usually because of the parental authority you represent).

This is where Reich pounces, pointing out that the patient is self-censoring, and asking him to explore why.... A classic transference interpretation, which because it happens in the very first session, helps the patient experience almost immediate improvement.

Obviously personality types have become a standard feature in the current diagnosistic manual (DSM IV-TR) of the American Psychiatric Association. While others have refined Reich's work (as well as eliminating some of the psychoanalytic jargon), his original observations regarding the early childhood origin of personality traits have stood the test of time.

Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall, author of THE MOST REVOLUTIONARY ACT: MEMOIR OF AN AMERICAN REFUGEE Read more ›