I'm Changing My Name

I've always referred to myself as a medical orgone therapist, and to the treatment approach I employ as medical orgone therapy. But I’ve decided to make a change. From now on I will now be calling myself a psychiatric orgone therapist and calling the work I do psychiatric orgone therapy. 

Why the change? Now that my blog is underway and being read worldwide, I am paying close attention to the way I use terms. For many coming here, this is their first exposure to orgonomy. Others are very familiar with Reich’s work. Regardless, knowing that I am reaching a broad audience, I want to be as clear and accurate as possible in all I present.  

The therapy Reich originated has been referred to in different ways. Reich originally called it vegetotherapy because it is directed toward normalizing the vegetative (autonomic) nervous system. However, he changed the name from vegetotherapy to character-analytic vegetotherapy. This modification combined his specific verbal technique with the somatic aspect of the treatment. With Reich’s discovery of orgone energy, he again changed the name, this time to orgone therapy. This served two purposes: it eliminated “vegetotherapy” (as it sounded too much like like “vegetables” and “vegetate”) and introduced orgone energy as the central element. After that time Reich referred to the treatment as "medical orgone therapy" and as "psychiatric orgone therapy." Since Reich's death, it has been variously called orgone therapy, medical orgonomy, orgonomic therapy, orgonomic biopsychiatic therapy, orgonomic bio-emotional therapy, and psychiatric orgone therapy. These terms have largely been used by psychiatrists. 

On a historical note, Elsworth F. Baker, M.D., in his book Man in the Trap, did not use the word “orgone” except in the preface, to define it, and in the glossary. He elected to call the treatment orgonomic biopsychiatric therapy. Why he chose to do so I do not know, as I never raised the issue with him. He might have avoided the term because of the 1954 Food and Drug Administration court injunction against Reich and Michael Silvert, M.D. This ruling ordered any material that was "misbranded" would be recalled and destroyed. Misbranded material included all books and journals issued by the Orgone Institute Press. The defendants (Reich and Silvert) were “perpetually enjoined and restrained from making statements and representations pertaining to the existence of orgone energy.” Baker (and others) surely understood the meaning of perpetual, and I believe Baker might have chosen to avoid the using the terms “orgone” and “orgone energy” to steer clear of FDA investigation and prosecution of himself and other physicians practicing orgone therapy. 

Reich died in 1957 and Baker’s book was published just ten years later. This was still a time when every physician practicing Reich’s therapy lived under the threat of an FDA investigation for claiming orgone energy existed. As I recall, I think it was in the mid 1970’s, there was talk that there would be an FDA inspection of the offices of physicians practicing orgone therapy. The doctors who had medical DOR-busters and orgone accumulators that were for their personal use only, and not for the treatment of patients, panicked. I know of many, myself included, who destroyed all their “misbranded devices.” For sure, the possibility of yet another attack, in some form, upon physicians practicing psychiatric orgone therapy remains. 

Returning to Baker, his later writings in the Journal of Orgonomy referred to orgone energy. He also used the term "medical orgone therapy." This, too, had been my choice and while there is nothing fundamentally wrong with it, I do find it problematic. Here’s why. It indicates the treatment is “medical,” but what does this really mean? “Medical,” when employed as an adjective, has become so widely and loosely used that it has lost much of its meaning unless employed within a specific context. The word “psychiatric,” because it is specific, is far more descriptive. With this change it is now clear the treatment I render is being performed by a psychiatrist and that emotional problems are its focus. My decision to call myself a psychiatric orgone therapist has good precedent. Reich used it. Morton Herskowitz, D.O., a respected psychiatrist who trained with Reich and still practices today also uses this designation. However, even the phrase "psychiatric orgone therapy" is awkward. There’s that odd word “orgone.” It isn’t common parlance and therefore provides no mental reference for those unfamiliar with Reich and his work. Furthermore, it just sounds strange. This unfamiliarity and strangeness might well cause those seeking help for their emotional problems to abandon further investigation into such a “weird” treatment. 

So, should the word “orgone” be done away with and replaced with some other designation, possibly one that indicates the treatment is energy-based, or that emotional release is involved? I know of practitioners in the field who presently refer to themselves as medical orgone therapists and are seriously considering getting rid of the “orgone” altogether and replacing it with some other more “acceptable” word or phrase. While I see where they are coming from, in my view the word “orgone,” odd as it is, must remain. Reich warned many times that although orgone energy and the function of the orgasm were the center of all his discoveries, these fundamental concepts would be removed in future generations. He said his findings would be appropriated without referring to what he called the “hot potatoes” no one wants to touch. Indeed, many of the spin-off treatments employed by neo-Reichians omit the “orgone” in both word and concept proving Reich was correct.  

To those of my colleagues who are considering taking the “orgone” out, I say that yes, the change may make your services more marketable and might well persuade people to enter into therapy with you. But such a change is made with the goal of personal financial gain. This is wrong and it would be a start down a slippery slope. What next? Will the controversial figure Wilhelm Reich be removed from marketing campaigns and literature geared toward the public? With orgone and Reich removed, as has been done by so many, Reich's therapy will be sanitized. But to do so would be a disservice to Reich’s legacy and the science of orgonomy. It is a risk to retain the word "orgone," as it was in Reich’s day and in Baker’s, but this is a risk I feel obligated to assume.

Wilhelm Reich was a true pioneer who discovered that the life energy, which he chose to call "orgone," was a real force in nature, flowing through all living things and existing in the cosmos. The therapeutic approach he developed involves emotional release and, with it, the removal of "armor"--blockages in the flow of energy. Every therapist practicing the therapy Reich originated owes him a debt of gratitude, a debt that can be repaid by crediting him and referring to his core discoveries, strange words and all.