3 : Reich’s Childhood and Youth: 1897-1917 47
for several years past the age of ten, going to the gymnasium once a year to take exams. At
least Ottilie recalled hearing that something like this may have happened.
The Tragedy, the Curse, and the Origin of the MissionIt is hard to say how unusual Reich’s childhood was until the age of about twelve.
An authoritarian father and a younger doting mother would not have been so remarkable for
that era. However, there seems to have been a degree of family tension beyond the “nor-
mal” range, stemming from the father’s jealous rages and his high expectations for his chil-
dren.
The combination of a creative tutor, the young Reich’s own zest for learning, and
the opportunities afforded by farm life may well have stimulated Reich’s intellectual curios-
ity to an unusual degree. In any case, it is worth noting that his interests as a child seem to
have been more scientific than literary. He was not especially shy and bookish, as one might
expect from a “mama’s boy.” Indeed, his extroverted interests appear to have had a good
deal in common with those of his father.
At about the age of twelve an event or a series of events happened that would rad-
ically influence Reich’s future. Before describing the crisis, something should be said about
how Reich disclosed it. First, he told several people. The ones I talked with were all women;
but there were many others, men as well as women, who knew Reich very well, to whom he
never mentioned these events. Those he did tell, he pledged to secrecy.
Secondly, the dramatic means of disclosure was also shrouded in secrecy. In late
1919 or early 1920, when he was about twenty-two or twenty-three and already a practicing
analyst, Reich wrote his first published article, “Ueber einen Fall von Durchbruch der
Inzestschranke Pubertat” (“The Breakthrough of the Incest Taboo in Puberty”).
In this article, Reich wrote as though he were treating a patient who illustrated cer-
tain psychological mechanisms. However, there can be little doubt that the “patient” is Reich
himself, especially since many years later Reich told his elder daughter that the article was a
self-analysis^11. The crucial details coincide so exactly with what Reich told others that one
cannot doubt its essential autobiographical authenticity.
Reich’s disguise worked. With the exception of his daughter, no one I have talked
with knew this article to be autobiographical. Indeed, most people did not know of its exis-
tence, since it was published in a rather obscure sexological journal whereas Reich’s other
early articles appeared in psychoanalytic periodicals. Finally, while Reich faithfully listed the
article in his bibliography, he never referred to it in his later writings, nor did he mention it
orally to my knowledge. His attitude toward this publication was clearly different from his
attitude toward other early writings that he would frequently cite or mention.
To turn to the article itself, Reich declares he is presenting the case because it illus-
trates in an unusually clear way the breakthrough of incestuous wishes into consciousness
in puberty. He describes the patient as a twentyyear-old man, a student at a technical school.
This is one oftwo disguises, aside from the format used in the article, for he himself was a