Annie. His first paper on “The Breakthrough of the Incest Taboo in Puberty” had dealt with
his mother’s violation of the taboo against extramarital sexuality and his own conscious
incestuous wishes. In his behavior toward Annie, Reich acted analogously to his mother, and
also lived out his own dangerous, unfulfilled adolescent wishes: he took the taboo object,
defying the father (the analytic community and its standards). It is not my intention to reduce
Reich’s attraction to Annie to her significance as a taboo object but, rather, to call attention
to his willingness, for rational and irrational reasons, to violate taboos in his personal as well
as his scientific life.
All sorts of complexities arise when personal analyses are combined with profes-
sional relationships. Nunberg saw Annie as a patient at the same time that he and Reich were
professional colleagues. Disputes arose between them, with Nunberg siding against the kind
of resistance analysis Reich advocated. How much the relationship between the two men
was clouded by the fact that Nunberg treated Annie, we cannot say. But it is worth noting
that almost all the younger analysts were in treatment with the relatively few senior analysts
then available in Vienna. These senior men treated not only the young candidates but also
often their mates, lovers, and friends. Undoubtedly, in discussions among themselves and
with Freud, the older men could preserve confidentiality yet still transmit a nonverbal opin-
ion derived from the analytic situation by a shrug, an enthusiastic nod, a pained look. At least
Paul Federn’s son, Ernst, suggests that this subtle interplay between judgments from person-
al analyses and evaluations of professional work often occurred^3.
In Reich’s case, Federn, Sadger, and Nunberg—all older analysts—were familiar not
only with his clinical work but with the most intimate details of his life.
An anecdote related by Lia Laszky further illustrates the complexities of such inter-
actions. During his analysis with Isidor Sadger around 1919, Reich had talked about Lia and,
it seems, had urged Sadger to take her free of charge when Reich relinquished treatment.
Sadger agreed. However, around the time that Laszky began her analysis, Sadger grew jeal-
ous of Freud’s approval of Reich—a much younger man and a relative newcomer to the psy-
choanalytic scene.Sadger would become irritated when Laszky talked positively about Reich,
thereby giving her a sure way to provoke her analyst’s anger.
On her side, Laszky was irritated by the fact that Sadger used the analytic setting to
fit her with a diaphragm.This step arose ostensibly through his concern with “actual neu-
rosis”: when Sadger heard that Lia practiced coitus interruptus, he urged her to use a
diaphragm and proceeded to fit her for one^4.
In the context of defending his own behavior, Reich spoke critically of Sadger and
others.He said that under the guise of doing a medical examination they would touch their
patients genitally. On the other hand, when he was strongly attracted to a patient he would
stop the treatment and allow time for the patient and himself to decide what they were going
to do^5.
Although it was certainly not uncommon for an analyst to marry a former patient
(Bernfeld and Fenichel, for example), the psychoanalytic community disapproved Reich’s
step in marrying his former patient.
8 : Personal Life: 1920-1926 107