gave a lecture before the Socialist students in Vienna, Federn wrote him in April asking that
he not lecture any more before Socialist or Communist groups. Federn was undoubtedly
reflecting Freud’s concern about Reich’s radical politics. A few weeks earlier the Christian
Socialist, authoritarian, yet anti-Nazi regime of Engelbert Dollfuss, which Freud supported,
had suspended parliamentary government, prohibited demonstrations, and curtailed free-
dom of the press. A number of Freud’s students and patients were dismayed by his endorse-
ment of a party so opposed to much of what psychoanalysis represented. However, Freud,
almost eighty and very ill, had become increasingly conservative in his social outlook.
Reich refused Federn’s request, though he did agree to consult with the executive
committee of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Association before accepting further speaking invi-
tations. But this concession was not good enough: Fedem wanted a binding promise. Reich
refused and asked for a written communication on the matter. (Reich always had an eye on
the written record.) Federn told Reich he could no longer attend the meetings of the Vienna
Psychoanalytic Association. Federn also said to Annie Reich that were he, Federn, in Reich’s
position, he would have long since resigned^20.
In order to settle the issue, Reich proposed a discussion before the executive com-
mittee. A meeting took place on April 21, 1933. According to his own account, Reich
offered to refrain from publishing and lecturing on political matters provided that the
Vienna Association took an official position on his views. Reich asked that the Association
either explicitly dissociate itself from his social concepts or give him the same freedom it
gave to other trends divergent from those of Freud. Reich did not want to be quietly
silenced or forced to resign.
The April 21 meeting was inconclusive. According to Reich, the secretary of the
Association, Anna Freud, remarked that the “powers that be” were against Reich; she, as sec-
retary, would be sending him further information. That information never came^21.
His professional situation in Vienna was clearly untenable. A young Danish physi-
cian,Tage Philipson,visited Reich in Vienna with the idea of going into analytic training
with him even though he was warned this might not be acceptable to the International
Psychoanalytic Association. Philipson told Reich that others in Denmark would like to study
with him and urged him to emigrate to that country.
So Reich left Vienna in late April 1933, without his family. His marriage with Annie
was over, though they were not divorced. He traveled to Copenhagen by freighter, arriving
on May 1. On May 2 a number of people were already visiting Reich’s hotel to seek therapy
with him or to talk about mutual concerns. The social life was so intense that Reich moved
into a small apartment.
Enmity as well as enthusiastic support was not long in coming. In addition to
Reich’s difficulties with the Danish Communists, he was soon under attack from govern-
ment officials, who had only given him a six-month visitor’s permit.
One of the first people to seek treatment from Reich in Copenhagen was a hyster-
ical patient who had previously made several suicide attempts. Reich told her that he would
see her for a few diagnostic sessions; at the end of this period, he referred her to one of his
14 : The Psychoanalytic Furor and Reich’s Break with the Psychoanalytic Association: 1930-1934 177