paper uproar might have waned after the critiques of Kreyberg and Thjotta. However, his
experimental work was but the most ludicrous part of his endeavors; many other delectable
items remained for public perusal. Indeed, even before the interviews with Kreyberg and
Thjotta, Ingjald Nissen, an Adlerian psychologist who some years earlier had praised Reich’s
character-analytic work, now declared in the Norwegian daily,Arbeiderbladet, for December
28, 1937: “Psychoanalysis in this country has become sort of a weedy garden, where all
kinds of parasites and climbers strike root and almost choke what is of value.” He com-
plained about the quackery of “psychoanalytic sectarians” who “do not even call themselves
psychoanalysts any longer,” and who practice “some sort of quasi-medicinal relaxation
analysis” which “only leads to sexual relations.” Nissen felt that something should be done
about the situation. He suggested that Norwegian physicians and recognized psychologists
should band together to decide who should be allowed to practice psychoanalysis.
An ominous note had entered the controversy. One was no longer dealing with
alternative explanations for the movement of minute particles, something beyond the ken
of the average reader, but with psychiatric “quackery” that led to “sexual relations.” The
debate was beginning to involve Reich’s professional practice. Nissen was correct that Reich
no longer called himself a psychoanalyst. Later, I shall detail Reich’s therapeutic develop-
ments during these years;suffice it here to say his technique involved more direct work on
the muscular armor. He was now seeing patients clad in shorts (men) or bra and shorts
(women) so that he could observe fluctuations in body movement, expressions, and temper-
ature more closely. Semi-nude patients, bio-electric experiments with a naked couple kissing,
pulsating vesicles—it was a volatile mixture indeed for the popular press and for the quiet
city of Oslo.
The person who channeled the diverse criticism into a barrage of newspaper arti-
cles during the spring and summer of 1938 was Johann Scharffenberg, M.D. Scharffenberg,
then in his seventies, was the grand old man of Norwegian psychiatry. He had little sympa-
thy for psychoanalysis of any kind and held moralistic views on sexual matters, although
politically he was no reactionary.
Whatever his reasons, Scharffenberg was relentless toward Reich. He used every
argument,fair or foul, he could find. These included that Reich’s experiments were non-
sense;that Reich might never have received an M.D. degree; that Reich wished to arrange
sexual intercourse between mental patients for experimental purposes; that his psychiatric
treatment aroused lascivious excitement; that his “sex propaganda among the young should
be investigated,” for if the young followed his teaching, “they would very soon end up in
conflict with the Norwegian Criminal Code”; and that Reich was violating the conditions of
his Norwegian visa by treating patients rather than simply limiting himself to teaching and
research^25.
Only the last point needs any elaboration at this stage. Scharffenberg based his
accusation on a case history Reich published about an “alcoholic engineer.” Reich’s adher-
ents replied that Scharffenberg must be unaware of the policy of disguising case histories,
and that in fact all of Reich’s “patients” were professional persons who were also undergo-
17 : The Bions: 1936-1939 217