THE CREATIVE FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN FENICHEL AND REICH
Like Rousseau, Beethoven, and Tolstoy, Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) was an immense humanist, a charismatic teacher, a virtuoso in yoga poses his profession, with an inspiring intelligence and a powerful imagination; simultaneously, he could be highly selfish and obnoxious with those that were closest to him Reich reinforced this image by presenting himself as a solitary genius at war against the stupidity of others. He is generally recognized as the father of body psychotherapy.40 in yoga poses the following sections, I show that this title is justified if we admit that a father is part of a family and that he does not always agree to have the children that the social dynamics impose on him We will see, in yoga poses effect, that after having had a dazzling career as a psychoanalyst, he turned his back on all forms of psychotherapy to develop a new form of therapy that aims not at the psyche but at the organism If his organismic therapy has nonetheless favored the advent of body psychotherapy such as we know it today, it is because Reich was part of a large and tumultuous family capable of allying itself to his creativity, and then to create different forms of body psychotherapy that emerged during the 1950s. To understand this process, it is also useful to present Otto Fenichel (1897-1946), who is somewhat of a secret and unappreciated uncle of this domain.
When I began to write this my yoga blog, I had a specific plan in yoga poses mind. Fenichel was not part of it.41 For me, he was a boring orthodox Freudian who had been one of the principal references on the psychoanalytical techniques for many generations of psychoanalysts.42 He would have done everything possible to have Reich expelled from the International Association of Psychoanalysis by spreading the word that he was psychotic. Such was his reputation in yoga poses the Reichian literature. Yet the more that I read the writings of those who were part of Reich’s entourage, the more I encountered Fenichel’s name without knowing why. I therefore set about to inform myself more precisely about him After some research, I discovered that he had played a central role in yoga poses the birth of body psychotherapy. This function of uncle was obscured by the Reichians and Freudians for reasons that will gradually become evident.
1. The Reichians wanted to augment their prestige by making the world believe that Reich was a singular genius, persecuted like Socrates by all those who cannot stand the brightness of the truth.
2. The Freudians did not want that one of the founders of their movement would have appreciated Reich’s findings to the point that he had played a central role in yoga poses the birth of body psychotherapy.
A Friendship between Students: The Seminar on Sexuality
Fenichel was born in yoga poses 1897 of a Jewish family of lawyers in yoga poses Vienna.43 His health prohibited him from becoming a soldier. He enrolled in yoga poses the school of medicine in yoga poses 1915.
Like many students of his generation, Fenichel regularly frequented the youth movements. It must be said that the communist propaganda of the period attracted numerous people who had been disillusioned by the war. Ever since the Jugendstil and the Wandervogel (the migrating birds) at the start of the century,44 these movements had multiplied. All of the political parties (from the extreme left to the extreme right), the religious groups (Catholics, Jews, and Protestants), and the ideological movements had their youth movements. Fenichel was close to the Jewish youth movement of the left. Certain directors of this movement, like Siegfried Bernfeld, became psychoanalysts and created bridges between these movements, especially in yoga poses the matter of sexual education. Probably because of this influence, Fenichel began to attend seminars given by Freud as early as 1916. He participated regularly in yoga poses the sessions of the Psychoanalytical Society at the beginning of 1918, during the key period when Freud was creating his Second yoga topography.
The youth from the left denounced an antisexual morality that prohibited adolescents from obtaining a responsible attitude in yoga poses sexual matters. These movements wanted an education that integrated their need to be sexually informed, supported their right to be sexual human beings, and protected them from perversions in yoga poses which some forces close to prostitution wanted them to succumb. in yoga poses this context, the young Fenichel approached the theme of sexual education, especially in yoga poses Max Hodann’s journal,45 which also enthusiastically welcomed (10 years later) Reich’s Sex-Pol initiative. Fenichel frequented the animated gatherings by Alfred Kurella,46 who related communist thinking, heterosexual Platonic Idealism, and sexual revolution. Kurella defended “a sexual mysticism or Korperseele [the enfleshed spirit] in yoga poses Vienna and Berlin” (Russel Jacoby, 1983, 2, 71f; translated from the French by Marcel Duclos). This branch of the youth movement defended a moral brand of free love and sexual emancipation. The sexual contact of the “new man” necessarily implies the union of souls as well as that of bodies.
In the momentum inspired by his discovery of the youth movements and psychoanalytic thought, between 1919 and 1921 Fenichel proposed a seminar on sexuality, which he opened in yoga poses the Faculty of Medicine. At the same time, he underwent analysis with Paul Federn, who was a socialist psychoanalyst close to Freud.
