than a few cases before giving his conclusions. Ideally, however, one would like to have had
much more specific definitions of what Reich meant by freedom from symptoms in non-
sexual areas.
Reich’s second paper directly concerned with genitality, published in 1924, “Die
therapeutische Bedeutung des Genitallibidos” (“The Therapeutic Significance of Genital
Libido”), is significant because in it he first noted that while some patients were potent in
the usual sense of the term, they lacked what he called “orgastic potency.” Orgastic poten-
cy included, among other attributes, the fusion of tender and sensuous strivings toward
one’s partner, rhythmic frictional movements during intercourse, a slight lapse of conscious-
ness at the acme of sexual excitation, “vibrations of the total musculature” during the dis-
charge phase, and feelings of gratified fatigue following intercourse^8.
Reich was not unique in his emphasis on the capacity for uniting tender and sensu-
ous feelings in a healthy love relationship. As early as 1912, Freud had noted that many male
patients would not unite both tender and sensuous feelings, but would concentrate the for-
mer on an idealized mother figure toward whom they could not feel erotic, and their sexual
feelings on prostitutes^9. What was original was Reich’s emphasis on the involuntary physi-
cal aspects of full genital discharge.
In his next paper, “Die Rolle der Genitalitat in der Neurosentherapie” (“The Role
of Genitality in the Therapy of the Neuroses”), published in 1925, Reich expanded on the
“involuntary surrender” and the total bodily involvement of healthy genitality. He also
argued that adequate discharge of sexual energy can only come about through the genitals:
“The pregenital erogenous zones ... can only serve to increase the level of excitation.”^10
It became clear that the patients Reich and others had previously regarded as sex-
ually normal failed to meet these more refined requirements.On the psychological level,
Reich noted that seemingly potent male patients who could not completely surrender dur-
ing intercourse also used very active heterosexual strivings as a defense against other (e.g.,
homosexual) impulses.
Earlier psychoanalytic literature had documented the variety of motives and wish-
es at work in love relationships. But they also posited that a patient’s sexual act itself could
be “normal”in the physiological sense even if his relations with his partners were chaotic
or otherwise highly disturbed. What was new in Reich’s formulation was that the physical act
was disrupted when unconscious conflicts were operative.
I have tried to show how Reich’s concept of orgastic potency did not emerge sud-
denly and in full-blown form. On the contrary, since it was intimately related to his clinical
and theoretical concerns, it took time to coalesce. Indeed, not until 1926 could Reich pres-
ent a highly detailed description of what in fact he meant by “orgastic potency.” It was con-
tained in his book Die Funktion des Orgasmus,written in 1926 and published in 1927.
By this time,Reich’s grip on the subject had increased to the point where he could
offer a description that, essentially, would satisfy him to the end of his life. When in 1942
Reich published another volume, also entitled The Function ofthe Orgasm,he took almost
unchanged the elucidation oforgastic potency from the 1927 German volume, whereas the
7 : Reich’s Work on Orgastic Potency: 1922-1926 93