(1897-1957) Austrian
psychoanalyst who, in the 1950s, was
charged with
fraud for his methods of "treatment" and was
sent to prison where he died.
(1897 - 1957) Austrian
psychiatrist and social critic. Even before his graduation from the University of
Vienna he began practice as a
psychoanalyst and became influential in this
movement. His practice expanded from
Austria into
Germany where, as a
member of the
Communist Party, he attempted to integrate his
work as a
sex counselor into the broader
revolutionary movement.
Reich's activities were suspect by the leaders of the
Communist Party and, at the
time of
Hitler's
assumption to
power in
Germany in 1933, he was forced to flee to Denmark. Later that year he was ousted from the
Communist Party as a result of a
work he published against official
communistic doctrine. After attacks by other
psychiatrists and the
press he
left Denmark for Sweden and a
short while later went on to Norway. In 1937 his detractors reached him in Norway and he moved to the US and practiced there for many years. In the last years of his
life,
Reich showed little
interest in
psychiatry, devoting his
efforts to
discoveries in the
field of
physics. In 1956 he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for disobeying a
government injunction which the Food and Drug
Administration had obtained against him, ordering
destruction of all orgone boxes, his journals and books. He died while in prison a year later. See also
orazone,
psychiatrist and
psychoanalyst in this glossary.