otic, her pulse thready, her hands cold and clammy, her shoulders hunched up
acutely Between contractions, her eyes rolled up into her head and her distress was
extreme with each contraction....
It took considerable effort to make her lower her shoulders. Succeeding in
this I asked her to breathe more deeply, to prolong her expiration. She clenched her
jaws but I discouraged it immediately and helped her to let her jaw drop. The spasm
in her shoulders and intercostal muscles which were exquisitely tender was gradu-
ally overcome. Her respiration improved.... The severity of the pain of uterine con-
tractions began to subside.... Despite more than forty hours in labor, a good part
of it agonizingly painful, she began to look comfortable and pleased. An important
quality of her reaction to pain was a distinct withdrawal in her eyes. When she did
this, she appeared to lose all contact. She did not hear me, seemed confused, and it
was difficult to bring her back.The mother herself reported later: “Only when you called me back would I, with a
very definite effort, bring my gaze back. It was so easy to go off that I believe you had to
call me back quite often. By this time I was tingling all over. I began to feel warm and
relaxed,whereas previously I was chilled and tense. ... I can’t quite understand it myself. I
only know that it helped me tremendously.”^36
Beyond the elimination of harmful neonatal procedures, Reich very early practiced
certain kinds of intervention, or what he came to call “emotional first aid,” with infants and
children. Thus, one infant, the son of an orgone therapist and a mother very interested in
Reich’s work, developed an illness soon after birth. For reasons not too clear the infant boy
had been circumcised. Reich, who saw the infant soon after birth, described him as round-
ed like a “bluish balloon.” His chest was high and respiration was disturbed. An angry cry
broke out as though the organism wanted to get out of itself. The penis was cyanotic. The
baby had been crying almost constantly and jumped at the slightest touch. It was like a chain
ofevents where one link pulled the other.
Reich advised stopping all enemas and all chemical treatments. The baby had to be
given considerable warmth. Finally, the blown-up chest had to be eliminated. How does one
work with a baby’s chest? One can’t go in with the knuckles or tell the baby to breathe. Reich
tried to help him breathe by gently tickling and swinging him. Gentle massage was also used.
Reich helped the mother to learn the same techniques; she also proceeded to stroke the rest
of the child’s body. And the parents tried to help the infant gag.
Some months later, the child was much improved and his movements were more
gentle.^37
Reich’s intervention here clearly illustrated several of his principles. First, he mod-
ified techniques derived from the study of heavily armored adults to handle more acute con-
tractions and armorings in an infant, contractions that in an adult would take longer to
release.Second,he brought the mother into the treatment. Once again he was searching for
ways to make his endeavors more practical socially. Much as he believed that only a physi-
310 Myron SharafFury On Earth