husband, Sigurd Hoel, who was a novelist, and several other analysts. Harold Schjelderup, a
professor at the University of Oslo, and Hoel, who both went into therapy with Reich while
he was in Denmark, were instrumental in helping Reich move to Oslo. Thus, as so often with
Reich, while old ties were being disrupted, new ones were already forming.
Throughout this period, Reich continued to be immensely concerned with his per-
ilous position within the psychoanalytic organization. He entertained hopes that a substan-
tial group of younger, Marxist-oriented analysts (such as Otto Fenichel, George Gero, then
an analytic candidate training with Reich, Karen Homey, and Edith Jacobson) would support
his work and do battle for him and with him. Reich was aware, of course, of the difficulties
of organizing an “opposition movement.” If one espoused the cause clearly, one risked a
break with the existing organization. If one organized a new home too early, one faced the
danger of premature structuralization of still nascent concepts and techniques.
Reich made use of his own struggles to understand those around him. He, too,
feared “homelessness.” By 1934, however, he felt much less “organizationally bound” and
much more prepared to accept loneliness^26. He also recognized that he had put more of
his work within the psychoanalytic and Marxist organizations than properly belonged there.
Unfortunately, he would find that other Marxist-oriented analysts did not share this aware-
ness.
In the months before the annual International Psychoanalytic Congress, to be held
in Lucerne that August, Reich was preoccupied with the role of the opposition movement.
On August 1, he received a letter from Carl Müller-Braunschweig, secretary of the Berlin
Psychoanalytic Society. Reich was informed that because of the political situation, his name
would not be included on the list of German members. But, the secretary added, this was
only a formality. The Norwegian Society was going to be recognized at the Congress and the
listing of Reich’s name in that affiliate at a future time would suffice to keep his association
membership^27.
Reich was not especially upset by what seemed to be a diplomatic maneuver, even
though he doubted that the downplaying of a controversial analyst would spare noncontro-
versial ones from Hitler’s wrath (as indeed it did not). At first nothing seemed out of order.
But during the evening reception, an embarrassed Müller-Braunschweig took Reich aside to
say that the German executive committee had excluded him from membership altogether;
hence he was not entitled to attend the business meeting. Later, Reich was to discover that
he had been excluded from the Berlin Society a whole year earlier.
Reich informed his sympathizers of what had happened; some were upset, others
minimized the incident since Reich would soon be accepted by the Norwegian group. Reich
wanted his friends to refer to the controversial theoretical issues in their lectures to the
Congress. However, although people such as Fenichel and George Gero dealt with subjects
that involved Reich’s theories, all the controversy surrounding his work was ignored. Reich’s
hopes were dashed that a group of people would sharply and dramatically confront the old
guard. If anyone was to show the flag of the opposition, he would have to do it alone.
14 : The Psychoanalytic Furor and Reich’s Break with the Psychoanalytic Association: 1930-1934 179