eyes” to the relationship^4. However, it cannot have been easy for her to know that Reich
was involved with a woman who was also her friend. Annie appears to have had the habit
of blunting her own anger, but presenting her situation in a way that stirred up the anger of
others on her behalf^5.
Reich was also having trouble with analytic colleagues. Many had regarded him as
intense and “fanatical” even beforehis radical political involvement. After it, the number
who took this view sharply increased. Richard Sterba, Reich’s friend during the early and
mid-twenties, found that after 1927 Reich was far more “belligerent” than he had been ear-
lier. The two men argued about Reich’s professional direction until an increasing coldness
set in between them and there was little further contact^6.
Reich had always shown a tendency to meet opposition with indignation and bel-
ligerence. This disposition undoubtedly contributed to the growing conviction on the part
of many analysts that from 1927 on, Reich exhibited “paranoid” trends. At least, Sterba,
Grete Bibring, and—in retrospect—Annie Reich felt that this was the period when Reich
“changed.”
Other observers felt differently. Lia did not perceive the Reich of the late 1920s as
“paranoid”; on the contrary, she described a much less “touchy” person than the youth she
knew at medical school. Yet her description has one element in common with those more
antagonistic to Reich. When criticized, she said, Reich in certain moods “could take any-
thing” with equanimity. But in other moods he could take nothing without flaring up.
If some of his colleagues found Reich belligerent, he found many of them infuri-
atingly remote from the turmoil of the times. If they found him fanatical, he saw them as
lacking either conviction or the capacity to apply their psychoanalytic knowledge to the
social scene.
Reich could still be a delightful companion,participating in a variety of social gath-
erings. Ottilie has described how sparkling and winning he could be at parties: “I never knew
anyone who could be so seductive—not sexually seductive, but charming. That smile!”
However, increasingly the social evenings were mixed with work discussions. As Grete
Bibring put it,“One could not be around Reich long without the discussion turning to
work.” Bibring interpreted it as another sign of Reich’s taking himself too seriously when in
1928 he sent her a photo of himself at his desk with an inscription on the back: “The
researcher at work.”
Reich experienced the same mixed attitudes from his colleagues that he had expe-
rienced earlier, only now in more intensified form. Most of his associates liked his work on
character defenses but disliked his views on genitality. By 1927, his sex-political work com-
bined with his ardent Marxism added to the widespread criticism that he was advocating a
“genital Utopia.” It should also be stressed that in the 1920s psychoanalysis as a profession
was entering a more respectable and settled phase. With his affirmation—among other
things—of adolescent and childhood sexuality, Reich threatened to provoke anew the anger
ofsociety.
IfReich found many of his colleagues turning against him, he received a warmer
144 Myron SharafFury On Earth