Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 14:12:11 +0200
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?H=E5vard?= Nilsen <havard.nilsen-AT-hi.uio.no>
Subject: Re: reich


At 22:42 08.05.00 -0400, you wrote:

>In what ways then was Reich "on board" with the Frankfurt School in any 
>sustained
>way?  What would it mean for him to "officially" break with them?
>This all sounds to me like a socially constructed "origin myth" created 
>after the
>fact, by scholars of  the 1960s generation.
>But maybe I am wrong.  Is there is historian in the house?
>
>Neil McLaughlin
>
>


Reich had, as far as I know, neither a formal connection to the 
Frankfurters nor a knowledge of their works, apart from his acquaintance 
with Erich Fromm. In general, Fromm and Reich were part of the same 
generation of marxist psychoanalysts in Berlin, a group that also included 
Otto Fenichel, Edith Jacobsson and others. Fromm did probably attend Reichs 
seminar at the Berlin institute for psychoanalysis. Reich and Anna Freud 
had their respective seminars at the same time, so you had to choose the 
one or the other. Karen Horney chose Reich, and I would be very much 
surprised if not Fromm did the same.
It is not hard to see that Reichs two books from 1934, Characteranalyse and 
Massenpsychologie des fascismus inspired Fromm a lot.
I did not know, however, that Adorno was sympathetically inclined towards 
Reich, and that came as a bit of a surprise. If anyone knows of an excact 
reference on this point, or in general on Frankfurters comments on Reich, 
it would be interesting to see.


Håvard Nilsen


____________________________________

Håvard Nilsen
Research Fellow
Dept.of History
University of Oslo

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