his criticisms of psychoanalysis he was around twenty-seven, while Federn, Hitschmann,
and Nunberg were, respectively, fifty-three, fifty-two, and forty-one. Moreover, these men
had been with Freud for many years, Reich for only a few.
Some of Reich’s analytic peers attributed the hostility shown by senior analysts to
their jealousy over the regard that Freud felt for Reich. Freud had permitted Reich to start
his analytic practice while still a medical student. He had steadily supported Reich’s activi-
ties, making warm comments about his articles in the early 1920s and encouraging Reich’s
efforts in first starting, then leading the technical seminar. One analyst quoted Freud as say-
ing that Reich had “the best head” (der beste Kopf) in the Vienna Society^15. With our knowl-
edge from many sources of Freud’s enormous emotional significance as “father figure” to
almost all his Viennese colleagues and students, we can imagine how galling it must have
been to older “siblings” to see the young Reich so favored by Freud.
The degree of controversy Reich generated among the older analysts can be better
understood if we look more closely at the relationship between Reich and the man to whom
he addressed the letter cited above—Paul Federn. Federn had been one of Reich’s main ana-
lytic sponsors during the medical school years and his early period as an analyst. Reich had
been to his home for dinner and had been his patient for a brief period. And Federn had
called Reich the best diagnostician among the younger analysts.
Sometime around 1924, Federn’s attitude appears to have changed. In his letter to
Federn, Reich complained bitterly that his efforts had met with “blind criticism or scorn”
from Federn and other senior analysts. He went on to say that he was upset that he was the
only analyst who discussed his treatment failures in courses and in publications^16.
In the same letter Reich also complained that he was never appointed to the exec-
utive committee of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, though this appointment was prom-
ised him and he felt he had earned it through his teaching, writing, and administrative activ-
ities. He had not complained, he added, when in 1923 he was rejected for committee mem-
bership because it was necessary to have one lay analyst (Siegfried Bernfeld) hold office. He
also accepted Federn’s explanation for the 1924 elections, when a Dr. Robert Jokl was cho-
sen rather than Reich for the position of second secretary because certain differences with
Jokl had to be smoothed over.However, in 1925, one of the two secretariat positions was
simply abolished. Reich interpreted the administrative move as a “boycott of my person and
a completely undeserved wrong.”
To understand why the appointment was so important to Reich and why he
addressed his complaint to Federn, two facts about the Society at that time should be
stressed.
Freud was now ill with cancer of the jaw. Indeed, he did not believe nor did oth-
ers—that he had long to live. (In fact, Freud did not die until September 23, 1939, at the age
of eighty-three.) He had cut down on his activities and no longer attended the regular meet-
ings of the Society, although he did meet with the executive committee. And, as Reich
acknowledged in his letter to Federn, one reason he wanted to be on the executive commit-
tee was that it would provide more of an opportunity to see and listen to “the Professor,” a
84 Myron SharafFury On Earth