From Publishers Weekly
Reich's brutal candor, his precocious sexuality and penchant for self-analysis make this pastiche memorable. At age four he eavesdropped on the housemaid making love to a coachman; at 11 he lost his virginity and from then on had sexual intercourse almost every day for months, he tells us. This stitched-together self-portrait is in three parts. First, a powerful essay from 1919 describes the effect of witnessing his mother's infidelity when he was 12. His jealous father's beatings drove her to suicide attempts, hastening her tragic death and cutting short Reich's youth. The middle section, an excerpt from History of Sexpol (1937), recalls his exposure as a soldier to the herd mentality of the Austrian army. In the final sectionembarrassingly adolescent diaries from his years as a medical student and young analyst in Viennawe see Reich applying Freud's ideas to his sexual fantasies, to a prostitute and to the woman who would later become his first wife.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
"What a role women play in my life!" exclaimed Reich in 1920, the same year that he was admitted into the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. In that milieu of provocative ideas Reich began a five-year diary covering his years as medical student and beginning psychoanalyst. Full of youthful passionsindeed, reckless sexuality is the abiding themethe diary reveals the highly personal underpinnings of his later theories and his embattled life as uncompromising iconoclast. The book makes compelling reading but is disappointing in its many gaps, especially regarding Reich's involvement with Freud. With few explanatory notes and no introductory matter, this is for informed readers. William Abrams, Portland State Univ. Lib., Ore.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
