on his patients’ “fear of falling,” a fear that often became prominent during the final stages
of therapy when orgasm anxiety was strong. He connected the fear of falling with the fear
“of the typical sensations in the diaphramatic region which are experienced on a roller coast-
er or in a suddenly descending elevator.”^16
After the clash with Danish officialdom in the fall of 1933, Reich decided to take a
four-week vacation in early December. He wanted to visit London, which he was consider-
ing as a possible permanent residence; to see his children in Austria; and to visit friends in
other European cities. This month’s sojourn was the only time Reich traveled widely not out
of necessity but choice.
In London, he met Bronislaw Malinowski for the first time. A friendship begun
through letters was now enhanced by personal contact. In his book Der Einbruch der
Sexualmoral(The Invasion of Compulsory Sex-morality), published in 1932^17 , Reich had made use
of Malinowski’s findings about the Trobrianders to postulate that patriarchy, sex negation,
and a class division had long ago “invaded” the natural state of matriarchy, sex affirmation,
and primitive communism. At that time Maiinowski was one of the few academic scholars
who thought highly of Reich’s writings.
Reich’s visit with Ernest Jones was less successful. Among other factors contribut-
ing to Jones’s dislike of Reich was the latter’s personal and intellectual closeness to
Maiinowski. Jones and the anthropologist were then engaged in divisive polemics about the
universality of the Oedipus complex.
The ever correct Jones invited Reich to present his views at a meeting of English
analysts. According to Reich, the atmosphere of the meeting held in Jones’s home was one
of rigid formality. Reich stressed the social origin of the neuroses, a view that met with
vague agreement qualified by Jones’s insistence on a strict separation between science and
politics. Nonetheless, Jones privately told Reich that he would strongly oppose any move to
expel Reich from the Psychoanalytic Association. However, after meeting with Jones, Reich
relinquished any idea ofa move to London^18.
In Paris, Reich met with several officials of Leon Trotsky’s Fourth International, the
militant but tiny Marxist organization in opposition to Stalin’s “state capitalism” as well as
to private capitalism. Yet the officials could see no practical place for Reich’s concepts in
their political work^19.
Reich also attended meetings of German radical refugees in Paris. He found these
radicals still happily talking about “categories of class consciousness,” without seriously con-
sidering the implications ofHitler’s victory for their concepts and activities. Irritated and
spurred by the scholastic discussion, he returned to his hotel room and outlined what later
became his masterful article, “What Is Class Consciousness?” (see page XXX, chap 13).
Reich next went to Zurich, where he saw an old friend, the sexologist and political
radical Fritz Brupbacher, author of40 Jahre Ketzer(Forty Years a Heretic),which Reich consid-
ered to be a “brilliant account of Philistinism in the workers’ movement.”^20 Brupbacher’s
deep concern for people and decades of involvement with social struggles “fascinated”
Reich—and Reich did not report being fascinated by many people. At this meeting,
15 : Personal Life: 1930-1934 189