functioning as “normal.” True, there might still be various psychological conflicts disturbing
the individual’s love relations. But the physiologicalsexual functioning itself need not be in
question.
It was into this undefined area of healthy adult genitality that the young Reich
chose to move both clinically and theoretically. True to the psychoanalytic tradition of study-
ing pathology, he confined himself at first to a more detailed exposition of genital conflicts.
Thus in his first paper on the genital experiences of patients, “Uber Spezifitat der
Onanieformen” (“The Specificity of Forms of Masturbation”), written in 1922, when Reich
was twenty-five, he noted that “in not a single patient was the act of masturbation accom-
panied by the fantasy of experiencing pleasure in the sexual act.”^2
Reich also noted that the masturbation fantasies of his male patients could be
divided into two major groups: in the first group, the penis functioned, it was erect and
active, but it was conceived as a murderous weapon or as a way of “proving” potency. In the
second, the penis remained flaccid and there were masochistic fantasies of being beaten,
bound, or tortured.
Reich’s approach to the study of his patients’ masturbation is noteworthy. First, he
was clearly not satisfied with the simple report from the patient that “I masturbated.” He
wanted to know, in detail,howand with what kindof fantasy. He also assumed that healthy
masturbation included the fantasy of heterosexual intercourse, an assumption that—to my
knowledge—was not previously present in the psychoanalytic literature. Finally, he was con-
cerned with how closely masturbation had a genital orientation, not only in fantasy but also
in physiological functioning (e.g., in the male, erection and thrusting motions).
The following year, 1923, Reich published the first outline of what was to become
his major thesis concerning genitality. The article, “Uber Genitalitat” (“On Genitaiity”),
dealt with the prognostic significance of the patient’s having attained “genital primacy” in
childhood^3 .Reich also contended that an evaluation of the patient’s genital functioning
during analysis provided an important, if not the most important, therapeutic criterion.
On the importance of “genital primacy,” Reich argued that patients who had
reached the genital stage in childhood had a better prognosis than those who, having reached
it,later regressed to an earlier mode of psychosexual functioning. The latter in turn had a
better prognosis than those who as children had never reached the genital stage but had
remained fixated at the oral or anal level.
Had Reich confined himself to these observations, backed by case material, he
would have made a valuable but modest contribution to the psychoanalytic literature. The
crux of these findings on psychosexual development was not original with him. However,
Reich then went on to make statements that were both original and highly controversial.
7 : Reich’s Work on Orgastic Potency: 1922-1926 89
*Psychoanalytic theory posited a shift in normal female development from an active, predominantly clitoral exci-
tation in childhood to a more receptive, vaginal orientation in adolescence and adulthood. This notion, which has
come under critical fire in recent years, will be examined in more detail later.