was finished, there was an icy stillness in the room. After a pause, the discussion
began. My assertion that the genital disturbance was perhaps the most important
symptom of the neurosis, was erroneous. Even worse ... was my contention that an
evaluation of genitality provided prognostic and therapeutic criteria. Two analysts
bluntly asserted that they knew any number of female patients with a completely
healthy sex life. They seemed to me more excited than their usual scientific reserve
would have led one to expect.
In this controversy I started out by being at a disadvantage. I had had to admit to
myself that among the male patients there were many with an apparently undis-
turbed genitality, though the case was not true of the female patients^7.It is interesting that Reich later acknowledged having to “admit to myself” in 1923
that there were male patients who appeared genitally healthy in spite of neurotic symptoms.
The paper itself holds no hint of such an awareness. Characteristically, Reich expressed him-
self at the time as more certain than in fact he was.
The criticisms Reich encountered sent him back to the drawing board, intent on
defining more precisely what he meant by a satisfactory genital life, and the ways his neurot-
ic patients failed to show this kind of gratification. This seems to be the first of many
instances where Reich fruitfully used opposition to his work in a creative way to define more
carefully what he meant: that, in this instance, there were genitally well-functioning patients
who nonetheless suffered from neurotic symptoms. Stimulated to further study, he would
demonstrate that he was more right than his critics thought, though in a different way from
the one originally argued.
In addition to the details of his own patients’ sexual functioning, Reich proceeded
to examine, through interviews and case records, the love life of over two hundred patients
seen at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Polyclinic. He was testing several hypotheses here:
(1) That genital disturbance was present in all neuroses;
(2) That the severity of neuroses was positively correlated with the
degree of genital disturbance; and
(3) That patients who improved in therapy and remained symptom-free achieved a
gratifying sex life.Again, Reich was impressed by the frequency and depth of genital disturbances he
found. He became very suspicious of the superficial reports about sexual experience,
whether supplied by clinic patients themselves or by the psychiatrists who evaluated them.
For example, a patient whose sex life was reported to be normal, on closer interviewing by
Reich revealed that she experienced pleasurable sensations during intercourse but no climax.
Moreover, she was consumed by thoughts of murdering her partner following the act.
Reich’s research efforts were a far cry from current standards, though for psycho-
analysts in the 1920s they were better than most. In this instance he at least studied more
92 Myron SharafFury On Earth