Home > Encyclopedia of Psychology > Wilhelm Reich

1897-1957
Austrian psychoanalyst whose unorthodox ideas contributed to the development of psychoanalytic theory.

Although Wilhelm Reich is remembered primarily for his legal battle with the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over their outlawing of his "orgone energy accumulator," his earlier works were influential in the development of psychoanalysis. In The Function of the Orgasm, published in German in 1927 and in English in 1942, Reich placed the drive for sexual fulfillment at the center of human psychology and argued that neuroses resulted from sexual repression. In his Character Analysis, published in Vienna in 1933 and in the United States in 1949, he described how defensive character traits were developed to cope with specific emotions, and he argued that the goal of therapy was to...