February 3, 2010
Thoughts on the Innovative Mind
Psychiatric Orgone Therapy
One of Wilhelm Reich’s most important and lasting contributions is a unique treatment for emotional disorders called psychiatric orgone therapy. Reich began as a psychoanalyst and was a member of Freud’s inner circle, but moved away from Freud’s method of free association when he developed a more effective verbal approach he called character analysis. Later he came to recognize the existence of a specific biologic energy in living organisms that he called “orgone,” which was coined from the word “organism.” With this discovery Reich was able to combine his verbal method with a technique that could normalize a person’s energy. The result was an entirely new approach to treating emotional disorders that he named orgone therapy.
Reich’s work with patients convinced him the disturbance in an individual’s energy state is caused by contractions in the body, especially in the musculature. He called these contractions “armor,” and established that they begin to develop in infancy as a way to block out emotionally painful events.
Past traumatic experiences are locked in the body--and they remain throughout life. How this happens is not fully understood, but there is no question that anxiety, anger and sadness, as well as the other upsetting feelings and emotions from childhood are not forgotten. Armor not only holds the disturbing past, causing it to remain alive but out of consciousness awareness, but it also affects how one feels and functions. Because living a natural healthy life depends upon whether a person’s energy flows freely or is blocked, the aim of psychiatric orgone therapy is to free up energy by breaking down armor. As these areas of holding dissolve, patients release their long buried feelings and emotions in the safety of the therapist’s office. They most usually surface spontaneously with the specific method Reich innovated, without the need of urging or any intervention on the part of the treating psychiatrist. However, occasionally, pressure needs to be applied to spastic muscles, or other techniques used to normalize the body. Because this treatment combines a verbal approach with a physical technique, it addresses both the mind and the body to bring about profound changes in how one thinks, feels and functions.
Today almost all people seeking treatment from a psychiatrist are given medications to reduce their symptoms. However, with psychiatric orgone therapy it is usual that patients, over time, find themselves able to wean themselves off medication and function without pharmacologic treatment. Reich’s therapy is unique in that it not only relieves distressing symptoms, but also does much more. It enables individuals to expand and feel pleasure, and better enjoy the many satisfactions life has to offer.
There are people who claim to practice some form of “Reichian” or “orgone” therapy, even though they have had no formal training in medicine or psychology. Often the techniques used by these self-proclaimed therapists have little or nothing to do with the very specific methods Reich developed and taught. The value of such therapies is questionable and may even harm those who get involved in them.
Qualified psychiatric orgone therapists have extensive training. They are physicians who have gone on to specialize in psychiatry and then in the very unique subspecialty of orgone therapy. They practice in much the same way as Reich did more than a half century ago. Ph.D. Psychologists who have had proper training can practice a form of orgone therapy safely and effectively. However, it is crucial they have supervision by a qualified psychiatric orgone therapist.
2 comments:
Richard, you have hit on an age old question. Man's ability to simply see. Goethe said: "What is the most difficult thing of all? That which seems the easiest. For your eyes to see that which lies before your eyes." What enables a person like Reich to be able to keep switching paradigms? Freud for all his creativity and intelligence got caught up in the establishment. Still Reich did not desintegrate into chaos but stayed on track and continued to produce and build on his work. I think this limitation in seeing must have to do with the armor. I believe that as has been mentioned, gifted people have holes in their armor that allows for exceptional functionig but still leaves them armored. Perhaps this explains why many people can function at high levels in some areas but only once in a thousand or two thousand years does someone like Reich come along.
Dr Schwartzman,
Sean Haldane wrote an important book based on Dr. Reich's work. The book Emotional First Aid has helped me understand how trauma (stress) blocks appreciation of new ideas. In summarizing Dr. Reich's ideas Mr. Haldane writes;
"The way a person mainly blocks emotion depend.....on all kinds of emergencies during childhood." ...."Depending on when in the child's life such events occur, a basic emergency reaction tends to become established."
I believe that restricted breathing and cutting contact with the eyes becomes an unconscious habit when encountering a stressful situation. Revolutionary insights like Dr Reich's are so stressful that one freezes in a return to a childhood pattern
that provides a form of previous safety. Though there are many variables freezing becomes an established emergency reaction stopping one from becoming fully conscious. Truly seeing the present is a task that must be freed from armored habits.
Richard Schulman
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