Notes
It would require a separate volume to give a full history of the various editions of Reich’s
publications. Suffice it here to say that it is extremely difficult to obtain many of his works
with their original content. Reich was himself partly
responsible for this deplorable state of affairs. Although he sometimes insisted on English
translations of earlier German publications or manuscripts that adhered to the original text,
he would on other occasions make changes without clarifying what the alterations were.
Mary Higgins and Chester M. Raphael are serving as editors for what appears to be a stan-
dard edition of all of Reich’s writings, published through Farrar, Straus & Giroux. In my
view, it is fortunate that they did not follow Reich’s wish to change the term “dialectical mate-
rialism”to “energetic functionalism” when they supervised the preparation of The Bion
Experiments (1979) from the German monograph Die Bione (1938). It is unfortunate that
their English edition (1981) ofDie Funktion des Orgasmus (1927) adheres to Reich’s emen-
dations, made in the 19405, without explaining how the original text was changed. Nor can
one obtain the original publications: they are out of print and very few libraries have them.
We sorely need an accurate and available record of the development of Reich’s thought and
work.
However, these textual problems are a small matter compared to the fact that many of Reich’s
late publications went “out of print” when unsold copies were burned by the Food and Drug
Administration in the 19508. The holder of the copyright, Mary Higgins, can now reissue
them,but she and the publisher have apparently decided to publish earlier works first. In the
interim we are deprived of some of Reich’s most important contributions, especially a num-
ber of articles on his method of thought (“orgonomic functionalism”), on Oranur and its
aftermath, and on infants and children. These and other articles are unavailable save for
microfilm copies that were generously donated by Eva Reich to some libraries in this coun-
try and abroad.
In citing Reich’s publications, I have used the translations by Theodore P. Wolfe, although
only one of these is in print. I do so because their literary verve is superior to the translations
done for the available Higgins edition. Moreover, Wolfe’s work had the benefit of Reich’s
careful review.In my citations of Wolfe’s translations, I have used chapter rather than page
references so that the interested reader may more readily find them in the available edition.
Abbreviations
Interviews
AI: Author’s Interview
AC:Author’s Conversation
Tel.Int.:Telephone Interview