Reichis extremely radical in the assumption, that 'normality' as in 'health', does not exist as a given social condition, but is only available after hard work at the 'deprogramming' of the patient. 'Health' is not the productof social reality - rather it canbe generated in spite ofthe social reality. While in the end, Freud accepted as an inevitable evil the condition of human misery- the price which is paid for separating from the animal kingdom, Reich could not accept sucha position.
Humansindeed are different fromother creatures bytheir ability to
arbitrarilycontrol their biological impulses, but
the process of character formation need not
be so traumatizing at all. Just like the
choice of sexualityis not, according to Reich, between "sexualityand abstinence", butbetween
"healthyand neurotic sexuality", so the choice of
the human conditionis not between "creating
humans capable of selfcontrol and creating
uncontrolled animals", but between "crude,unconsciouslydirected, traumatizing creation of
humans and aware, rational creation of humans".
Reich himself makes no
bones about it the existing types of patriarchal social order are perpetuated
by the existing neuroses. For millennia the youngmammals are tortured into a specific formof humanitynot by blind
chance, but following a mainly unconscious design - the perpetuation of the existing social
structures. Thus, inthe end, following Reich to his conclusions, the various mental splits, the
repressed emotions, the muscle hypertonia, the oxygen starvation and the blockage of
bioelectrical currents - these being the mainsymptoms of the 'neurotic' type of human
- all these are at the same time "sideeffects" and "centerpoints"
of the existing patriarchal structures.
A maintool in producing neurotic cannon fodder for any 'authority' is the strict suppression of childhood sensual impulses:
"The structuring of masses of people tobe blindly
obedient to authority is brought about not bynatural parental love, but by the authoritarian
family. The suppression ofthesexualityof small childrenand adolescents
is thechiefmeans of producing this obedience."
Character formation=programming
The conscious Self of the human is called
by psychoanalysts and Buddhists 'the
Ego'. Humansare not born with the Ego's theyhave -
these are developed through interaction with the environment. Ego structure,
as a separate area divided fromthe rest of the mental and emotional
events, is formedbythe scars from the outside - its boundaries are the shocks
Wilhelm Reich, 'The Function of The Orgasm: sexeconomic
problems of biological energy' p 8, New York 1973, Farrar, Straus and
Giroux which are the building blocks of the Superego.
The Superego is the sumof the 'control from
the outside' occurrences in childhood, which are imprinted in the
individual's psyche in a way which forms in specific ways the formation and interaction of
thoughts and emotions: "The superego is anagencywhich has
been inferredbyus, and conscience is a function
which we ascribe, among other functions, to that agency. This function
consists inkeeping a watch over actions and intentions of the
ego andjudging them, in exercisinga censorship. Thesense ofguilt,
the harshness of the superego, is thus the same thingas the
severityofconscience."