support. He felt insufficiently understood first with Annie, now with Elsa. With Annie, Lia
for a while proved a more sympathetically, then Elsa. In time Elsa, too, became embroiled
in his demand for total understanding and support. He turned to Gerd, seeking a “safety
valve,” respecting her independence more because she was not so close. And, with a blind
self-righteousness, he justified these affairs on the basis of his mates’ shortcomings, where-
as their affairs, even flirtations, were evidence of utter perfidy.
In his commotion with women, Reich may well have been displacing the rage he
felt toward his real opponents. There was no way of getting at his critics or stopping them
save through continued work. He did not want to stoop to the level of the “Kreybergs and
Scharffenbergs”—the level of personal mudslinging. As Use Ollendorff has well noted, his
rage was lived out against his wife, his friends, his colleagues, even his patients. The fiercer
the hostility and lack of comprehension in the press, the more he wanted enveloping
warmth, understanding, and support from those around him, and the less he felt he got it.
Most colleagues could not share Reich’s awareness of the significance of the bions.
They were awed by his earlier discoveries, but that was not enough for Reich. It was always
the latest “child” who was most beautiful, but who was somewhat alien to his followers since
they had been drawn to the Reich of former findings. More and more he urged them to
look,to see,to appreciate. More and more, under his pressure, with their awareness of their
scientific inadequacies and in the face of frightening criticisms from noted specialists, they
pleaded: “I am ignorant, I will defend you against unfair harassment, but I cannot give you
the intellectual support, the loving criticism, the shared collaboration in further research you
ask of me.” And, more and more, he felt alone and misunderstood by those closest to him.
Even Odd Havrevold, who of all Reich’s associates (with the possible exception of
Roger du Teil) had the clearest idea of what Reich was doing, was full of uncertainties.
According to Reich, it was Havrevold who had urged him to consult the noted bacteriolo-
gist, Thjotta, about the identification of certain biological forms—a step that Reich felt
turned out disastrously^26.
Havrevold’s concerns about winning others over in support of the work—always a
sign,according to Reich, of inner scepticism—is better revealed in one of FenicheFs
“Rundbriefe” from Prague in March 1937. Havrevold had urged an analyst visiting Oslo to
look at Reich’s work. Later, the analyst reported to Fenichel how he went to the laboratory,
where
Reich was very amiable, and demonstrated a lot for two and a half hours. What I
saw: particles moved in soot which glowed and floated in bouillon. I asked how one distin-
guished these movements from Brownian movement. Reich replied: “It is a question of the
growth of these forms in a culture,” and he showed me colonies. I didn’t have the factual
knowledge to evaluate what I was seeing. Schjelderup ... feared that if Reich’s work under-
went a scientific critique and a mistake was found which overthrew the whole thing, that
would be a catastrophe—not only for Reich personally, but the whole of Norwegian psy-
choanalysis would be compromised publicly and scientifically^27.
Reich could appreciate, indeed at times he shared, the attitude of Havrevold, who
242 Myron SharafFury On Earth