nents, especially psychoanalysts.
However, I would also argue that his downplaying of psychoanalysis facilitated the
development of his energy-block paradigm. Reich opened up a new domain through his
almost exclusive emphasis on the emotional, the energetic, the wordless. Today, it is time for
the “mopping up” phase of “normal science,” in Kuhn’s words, to make room within
Reich’s revolutionary paradigm for a more extensive and judicious use of verbal techniques
than he was able to employ in his late years.
One of Reich’s most substantial contributions to psychiatry occurred in 1941-42,
when he had a schizophrenic patient in psychiatric orgone therapy for the first and only
time. This young woman, previously hospitalized for many years, came to Reich on the rec-
ommendation of her brother, a student of Reich’s. The psychiatrist at the state hospital
where she had been treated and where she still went on an outpatient basis agreed to her
entering therapy with Reich. The encounter between Reich and his schizophrenic patient
was extraordinary, as revealed in the case history that was written six years later, in 1948, and
published in 1949^8. (Indeed, it is the only detailed case history Reich ever published.)
There is great gentleness in the way in which Reich treated this patient. With psy-
chotic patients, as with impulsive characters, it was not a question of breaking through
defenses to get to deeper feelings. Feelings were out in the open, if distorted—the impul-
sive character through his acting out, the schizophrenic through his delusions and projec-
tions. While he never romanticized the schizophrenic in the fashion of R. D. Laing and oth-
ers, Reich did appreciate the candor with which the schizophrenic spoke of his or her inner
processes:
Every good psychiatrist knows that the schizophrenic is embarrassingly
honest. He is also what is commonly called “deep,” i.e., in contact with happenings.
When we wish to learn something about human emotions and deep human expe-
riences,we resort as biopsychiatrists to the schizophrenic and not to homo normalis
[Reich’s term for the average character neurotic]. This is so because the schizo-
phrenic tells us frankly what he thinks and how he feels, whereas homo normalistells
us nothing at all and keeps us digging for years before he feels ready to show his
inner structure^9.Reich’s new comprehension of orgonotic energy functions was immensely helpful
in understanding the patient’s symptoms. She felt both protected and persecuted by “forces,”
the nature of which she did not understand. Reich began to view her “forces” as a projec-
tion of her body sensations. In therapy, he did not argue as to whether the forces were real
or not. Rather, he kept coming back to her fear of her bodily streamings, especially her gen-
ital sensations. In an extremely vivid and dramatic account, the case history described the
struggle between Reich and the patient, and within the patient herself, to permit her to
accept her body feelings. Nowhere else in Reich’s writings does the fear of the streamings,
294 Myron SharafFury On Earth