18 : Psychiatric Developments: 1934-1939When Reich presented his paper on “Psychic Contact and Vegetative Current” at
the 1934 Lucerne Congress, he focused, as we have seen, on various somatic manifestations
in his patients. Thus, in one patient he noted the phenomenon of “penis anesthesia,” the
experience of tactile but not pleasurable sensations when the penis was touched.
During the Norwegian years, Reich’s observations of and direct work with the
patient’s body increased markedly. His clinical work had been taking him in that direction
since at least 1930. Now his bio-electrical experiments focused on the flow of electricity as
well as body fluids in pleasure and anxiety. In addition, his highly sensuous relationship with
Elsa, their shared common interest in bodily expression and movement heightened his sen-
sitivity to variations in emotional changes as they manifested themselves in differing color,
temperature, and expression. Finally, he felt freer to break two strong psychoanalytic taboos
the taboo against touching the patient and the taboo —against seeing the patient undressed.
According to analytic theory, the patient should not be touched because touch pro-
vided gratification. The point of analysis was to establish and analyze the transference neu-
rosis—the repetition of old loves and hates for significant persons in the past, especially the
patient’s parents. The analyst was to be neutral, a “blank screen,” to which the patient could
“transfer” the complex relationship he or she experienced with parents. Touching would vio-
late the principle of analytic neutrality.
The taboo against the patient being undressed had a similar basis. The nudity or
semi-nudity of the patient would heighten the erotic meanings of the present analytic situ-
ation,thereby confusing the working through of the past with all its unconscious infantile
sexual conflicts. Freud had worked hard to separate psychoanalysis from the usual medical
procedures, procedures of examining and treating patients who, indeed, were often
undressed for better observation and palpation.
Finally, apart from any theoretical concerns, psychoanalysts had reason to be upset
by any touching of the patient or seeing him or her in the nude. For long they had defend-
ed themselves against the accusation that they advocated a wild acting out of sexuality, inside
or outside the analytic situation.It had taken concerted efforts to convince professional and
public opinion that their goal was to analyze sexual conflicts, not conduct or condone orgies.
Reich moved slowly in breaking away from these rules. In the early years of his
focus on the body, he limited himself largely to commenting on various muscular spasms.
Then gradually,in the late 1930s, he began making more intensive use of touch to attack the
body armor directly and elicit emotions bound up in muscular spasms. He would press hard
222 Myron SharafFury On Earth