Wilhelm Reich

Austrian-American psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, sex educator and sociologist (1897–1957)

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Lived 1897–1957, aged 60

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Wikipedia
56 languages
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Era
1897–1957
Aged 60
Known for
WR: Mysteries of the O…
1971

Summary

Updated 2026-06-09

He tried to merge Freud with Marx, coined "the sexual revolution", and shaped body psychotherapy — then built boxes he said trapped life energy and could cure cancer, ending his days in federal prison while his books burned by court order.

Biography

About

Wilhelm Reich graduated from the University of Vienna in 1922 and became deputy director of Freud's outpatient clinic, writing influential works including Character Analysis (1933) and The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933). His idea of muscular armour — personality expressed through how the body moves — seeded body psychotherapy, Gestalt therapy, and bioenergetic analysis, and students in the 1968 Paris uprisings threw his book at police. He established Vienna's first sexual advisory clinics in the 1930s, moved to Oslo in 1934, then to New York in 1939 as Assistant Professor at the New School.…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Wilhelm Reich

Wilhelm Reich

said19 Apr 1951

Rooting in work is crucial to any accomplishment. Rooting in mere enthusiasm will in the long run force illusory measures to keep the fires of empty enthusiasm going.

— Writings (19 April 1951)

Wilhelm Reich

said1949

The discovery of orgone energy was made through consistent, thorough study of energy functions, first in the realm of the psyche, and later in the realm of biological functioning.

— Ether, God and Devil (1949)

Wilhelm Reich

said1936

It is sexual energy which governs the structure of human feeling and thinking.

— Die Sexualität im Kulturkampf [The Sexual Revolution] (1936)

Wilhelm Reich

said1927

Psychic health depends on orgastic potency, i.e., upon the degree to which one can surrender to and experience the climax of excitation in the natural sexual act.

— General Survey

Wilhelm Reich

said1927