Customer Reviews

Character Analysis

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This is a challenging book especially for a lay person such as myself. Reich may have been on to something but he may also have been going mad.

The first two parts of "Character Analysis" cover Reich's move away from classical psychoanalysis as he decided his patients were sustaining their "mental" illness by means of chronic muscular tensions: the "character armor". He decided that talk therapy was unproductive: due to resistances people were not reporting genuinely. So he turned to direct physical activities.

The third and final part of "Character Analysis" is as extraordinary as it may be baffling. Reich believed he had found a cosmic life force, "orgone energy", the disturbance in the flow of which in a person led to neurosis or psychosis. He believed that an invention of his, the "orgone accumulator", might help a person by providing orgone energy to them. He provides details of the body work he conducted with a psychotic patient in the intense chapter "The Schizophrenic Split". He concludes with his concerns about "emotional plague" as an explanation for mass movements such as Fascism. Reich appears to be struggling in this third part of the book, at times he seemed brilliant to me, at times he seemed quite disturbed. To what extent he was reaching to find ways to express important findings is unclear. He seems to have overreached but that may not invalidated some or much of what he presented. It's hard to tell.

Although Reich's use of the "orgone accumulator" led to his imprisonment, body work based on his ideas and techniques has continued. Alexander Lowen developed the psychotherapy Bioenergetics based on Reich's findings. Charles Kelley created Radix, a personal growth practice, also based on Reich's work. Lowen has published exercises for one or two people The Way To Vibrant Health: A Manual Of Bioenergetic Exercises which may be used to become familiar with the kind of body work Reich pioneered. Reich believed that some form or other of character armoring was common among many people, not just the mentally ill: at least some of what he presents in "Character Analysis" may be useful for anyone.

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

Wilhelm Reich's Character Analysis was a trail blazing work in progress. Reviewers who are saying it is unevenly written, or flashes of brilliance, etc., need to take into account Reich was a research scientist constantly revamping his theories and therapy. Reich was out on the edge of this new field: bio-energy-psychology and he was constantly pushing that envelope.

Reich followed the trail wherever his research lead and soon crossed scientific boundaries: from medicine to psychiatry to biology to chemistry to astronomy to engineering and on and on.

Character Analysis is a good book for conventional/mainstream psychologists to begin looking at Reich's work, starting from a psychology standpoint and working toward the bio-energy therapy work.

Having experienced Reichian Therapy myself, I know how much physical, as well as mental, work goes into the de-armoring process. This process takes time and, for best and lasting results, shouldn't be rushed. My therapist, Mitch Singer in Seattle, told me most people wouldn't choose to tolerate the full therapy process, which includes the deep breathing and intervention/deep tissue work by the therapist to loosen the body armor. This process would overwhelm them, it would be more than they could tolerate because their body and character armor had such a grip on them. The individual has to want to go through the full Reichian process. The irony is the very armor which is preventing them from experiencing a fuller life and freedom, also prevents them from the willingness to understand and want to try the therapy.

This is an important book, but--through the years--I have found it very difficult to wade through, even with a strong psychotherapeutic background. In general, Lowen's or Baker's ("Man in the Trap") books are more useful, in my experience.

Reich's contention that individuals develop tough muscular patterns..e.g., around the eyes and mouth, and in the chest and abdomen ("character armor") as physical representations of psych. defenses are "spot on!" What's more, in the psychotherapeutic session, knowledge and use of this by working on the musculature by the therapist can be enormously useful. In short order, the patient is brought into contact with the emotional content of his blocked material. If the client is ready to risk and proceed with "the work," for real change...not just useless talking, which is very common in analytic sessions, the way is there. As we deaden our bodies, we deaden our emotional lives, and make change all but impossible. Is is typical, as one improves, that--among other things--sexual response improves; this is one indicator of therapeutic movement. Incidentally, some chiropractic work certainly enhances the Reichian bodywork.

Reich is also "on the money" about the fascist personality type. This is terribly relevant to our history--in the persons of President Nixon, and V.P. Dick Cheney, e.g.,...and with the repressive, warlike policies instituted under the Bush regime, which continue unabated under Obama. Of course the textbook cases of this are the figures Hitler and Stalin, who were rigid and utterly repressed and fascistic. The acting-out of their psychopathology spelled the deaths and torture of many millions.

Our fascistic, illegal and unconstitutional policies (and Nazi-like propaganda campaigns) in recent years have meant a lot of killing overeseas, and compromise of fundamental rights at home. 'Twould be exhilarating to see this come to an end, and to see sanity and compassion prevail.

Wilhelm Reich was many things in his lifetime- a student of Freud, a political activist, a research scientist, and an inventor. His work was decades ahead of its time and is finally being rediscovered and reevaluated by the public. If, like me, you are interested in Reich and his work, you might want to check out a novel called We All Fall Down, by Brian Caldwell. it draws heavily on Reich's theories, particularly Listen Little Man and The Mass Psychology Of Facism. It's a great introduction to Reich's work and the entire novel draws heavily on his theory. It's very interesting watching an author explore his theories in a fictional setting. Well worth reading.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The concepts Wilhelm Reich develops and explains in regard to character are put forward honestly and with the highest integrity. His confidence is based on years of training and a keen analytical ability.

I found this book to be complex in nature. Because of the era this book was written, the reasoning and vocabulary chosen it takes a great deal of time and analysis to transform the information provided and understand it in modern day terms.

A disturbing book. Reich's mother committed suicide after she had an affair with the then young Wilhelm's tutor. Then his father killed himself. On page 3 of this book Reich mentions "early infantile sexual demands and repressing forces of the age". Later, he refers to a "simple and double Oedipus complex". Reich appears obsessed with the nature of sex in this book.

The book was revised in the late 1940s and he appears to have developed ideation of self-persecution that later manifested in The Murder of Christ. Page 501: "But it is also true that Jesus was nailed to the cross by a pack of sick, cruel, murderous homines normales."

His attempts to treat schizophrenia in the final section of the book seem to have had mixed results. The fact that he resorted to use of his orgone accumulator perhaps suggests that his Reichian therapy was insufficient or inadequate.

The section on the "emotional plague" was fairly interesting. I can see why the authorities were suspicious of Reich as he declares that politicians suffer from the emotional plague. Such a sufferer is "incapable of working, but dreams of writing an important book or doing an extraordinary painting, of working a farm; but since he is incapable of working, he avoids the step-by-step organic development inherent in any work process." As defined, it seems to me that Reich suffered from the emotional plague himself as he was incapable of persevering with Freudian psychoanalysis to cure the trauma of his childhood.