a cutting remark without a basis^25.
Worse still, Freud took more than two months to respond to the manuscript,
whereas his usual habit was to give a written opinion within a few days. When he did
respond, Freud wrote:
Dear Dr. Reich:
I took plenty of time, but finally I did read the manuscript which you
dedicated to me for my anniversary. I find the book valuable, rich in
observation and thought. As you know, I am in no way opposed to
your attempt to solve the problem of neurasthenia by explaining it on
the basis of the absence of genital primacy^26.Why Reich read this letter as a rejection is not clear since, on the surface, it does
not seem so. Perhaps it was its brevity. Probably Reich was also reacting to the whole
sequence of events. At any rate, Freud’s reaction was sufficient for Reich to postpone send-
ing the book to the publisher until January 1927.
Exactly what Freud thought about Reich’s orgasm theory is not clear on the basis
of evidence from those years. However, there are documented reactions from a slightly later
date that give some clues to what may have been in Freud’s mind when he responded to the
manuscript ofDie Funktion des Orgasmus.
In a letter dated May 9, 1928, to Lou Andreas-Salome, friend of Nietzsche, Rilke,
and Freud, and a practicing psychoanalyst in the later years of her life, Freud wrote: “We
have here a Dr. Reich, a worthy but impetuous young man, passionately devoted to his
hobby horse, who now salutes in the genital orgasm the antidote to every neurosis. Perhaps
he might learn from your analysis of K. to feel some respect for the complicated nature of
the psyche.”^27
Freud was responding to a description by Andreas-Salome of a woman (K.) who
suffered from hysteria “with the typical father tie” but who nonetheless had sexual experi-
ences that revealed a “capacity for enjoyment, a spontaneity and an inner psychical surren-
der such as in this combination of happiness and seriousness is not often to be met with.”^28
It is clear from Freud’s response that he shared the attitude of many analysts that there are
sexually healthy neurotics.
Freud’s emphasis on pregenital factors in the development of neuroses was made
even more explicit at an evening meeting held in his home in 1928 or 1929. When Reich pre-
sented his views on orgastic potency, Freud replied that “complete orgasm” was not the
answer. There were still pregenital drives that could not be satisfied even with orgasm.
“There is no single cause for the neuroses” was his verdict^29.
Thus, Reich was probably correct in sensing some coldness in Freud’s response to
his manuscript. The growing divergence between the two men abounds in ironies. While
Freud certainly stressed pregenital factors, initially he had also been impressed by genital
ones in the development of the neuroses. In 1914, he wrote about the “bad reception
7 : Reich’s Work on Orgastic Potency: 1922-1926 101