Reich, Wilhelm ___ 1897-1957 ___ Austrian ___ psychologist

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Reich was born in Galicia, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (although it is now in Ukraine). Shortly after his father's death in 1914, he was obliged to flee his home when the Russian army invaded. During the First World War he served with the Austrian Army, and then entered medical school at the University of Vienna. In October 1920, he joined the Vienna Psychoanalytic Association, and thereafter worked at University Hospital and at Freud's Polyanalytic Polyclinic. He also studied neuropsychiatry under the nobel prize winner, Professor Wagner-Jauregg. In 1924, Reich married Annie Pink, a fellow analyst-in-training. Their first daughter, Eva, was born the same year; a second daughter followed in 1928. After divorcing in 1934, Reich re-married in 1946, and his second wife, Ilse Ollendorf, bore him a son, Peter. In 1930, he moved to Berlin where he joined the Communist Party, but the party did not accept his views on birth control and sex education and expelled him in 1933. His unique ideas on sexuality and politics (he believed regular orgasms were the way to mental health) led him outside mainstream medicine. The International Psychological Association expelled him in 1934. He fled from the Nazis, spending a few years in Scandinavia before going to the US in 1939. Most of the latter part of his life was dedicated to developing controversial ideas on 'orgone' energy, through his Orgone Institute. He died in prison, where he was serving a two year term for illegalities in the selling of his 'orgone energy accumulator'.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1919-1921 ___ self love/sex psychology

WEB TEXT LINKS
one quote
a couple of citations
a bit about

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard University

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
In Passion of Youth
 

May 2005, August 2008
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.