2 : My Relationship with Reich 31
In September, I took a room near Harvard. Originally I enrolled as a pre-med stu-
dent with the vague idea of becoming an orgone therapist, as Reich called his therapy.
However, since I was entirely unsuited to either physics or chemistry, I dropped both sub-
jects after a few weeks. I did learn German with the express wish of reading Reich in the
original.
In those days I worked hard on working, on noting what was in the way, what was
blocking me. Rainer Maria Rilke’s letters about Rodin’s mode of work were a constant inspi-
ration. So was Reich, whose picture hung on my wall: he represented a “benevolent pres-
ence,” to use Erik Erikson’s felicitous phrase. When my nerves were shattered through some
“wasteful” experience or disagreeable talk with my mother, I would sink into the quietness
of my room, review in my mind the life and work of my hero, begin to work myself, and
feel at peace again.
While anxious to have therapy with Reich, I also wished to be my own therapist, to
do it myself. To this end I had enlisted a fellow student and friend whom I will call Jack, so
that we could practice therapy on each other. First, he lay down and I helped him breathe
and express emotions. Then he would do the same with me. I would bring back information
as to how Reich carried out his therapy and we used it in our sessions. My visits every other
month or so to New York to see people connected with the work were extremely important.
There I did my “field research” on Reich the man and on his work, especially his therapy.
Each time I arrived at Grand Central Station, I was in a high state of excitement. I
stayed with a friend who lived in a cold-water flat on the East Side. A kindly, charming per-
son, he was in therapy with Reich. He kept telling me how hard it was, how Reich kept work-
ing on what was phony in his character. But hard as Reich sounded, he also appeared—in
this person’s account—a quite human therapist. While analyzing the patient’s affectations he
also acknowledged his own pettiness—for example, how as a lieutenant in the Austrian
Army during World War I he had sometimes worn a captain’s insignia to impress girls on
furlough.
I also liked Reich’s exchange with a female patient. He told her: “You have a mask.”
The patient replied:“You have a mask, too, Dr. Reich.” He in turn said: “Yes, but the mask
hasn’t me.“ That seemed a vivid way of distinguishing between a rigid, neurotic “character
armor”and the more flexible armor of the healthy person, who can open up when he
chooses to.
Those were the stories I collected. I sought out people who had contact with Reich
and then recorded what they told me, always looking for information that would help me
and my friend in our self-therapy. And I tried to find out how Reich lived, apart from how
he practiced therapy. I kept regular notes under different headings: “Personal
Development,” “Armor,” “Orgonomic Thinking,” “Men and Women.” My marks at the uni-
versity were improving, as were my study habits.
In the late spring of1947, my mother visited my room in Cambridge. I always felt
her presence there as quite alien.The room with its books and papers, its orgone accumu-
lator standing in the corner, represented my defense against her. Her presence meant that