Formation
of the character and sexual repression
The
bioénergie and bioenergetic analysis
The
irruption of sexual morals
Cosmic
energy
The
orgone is a paramount, omnipresent cosmic energy in the universe with
concentrations variable and distinct from the electric and magnetic forces.
From
the very start of its career, the work of Wilhelm Reich concerns sexuality, and
the orgasme in particular. Its research brings it to the following conclusion:
At the time of the orgasme an energy is released from a very particular type.
WR
comes from there to consider that what it named "bioénergie" is in
fact an energy of life which animates entire cosmos and which, presents in the
atmosphere, it acts at the alive one like specific biological energy. It names
then it "orgone" (1940) word
built on the Greek root organ, "to bubble of heat", from or derive the
words orgasmes and organization.
Vital
force
But
for Reich, this energy, far from being confined with the only sexual pleasure,
is essential with all the aspects of a healthy life. It only will be able to
deliver the Man of the anguish and to carry out it to happiness. However, for
certain reasons related to childhood, the natural function of the orgasme is
repressed at many subjects, causing pathological phenomena at the same time on
the physiological and psychological level.
A-to
leave 1933, its research on the orgone monopolizes all its time and oblige it to
put an end to its private practice of medicine. Extremely of its first work,
Reich leads to the idea that this energy, the orgone, is not solely released
during the orgasme but that it represents a vital force which underlies the
whole of Creation, a kind of cosmic, invisible and omnipresent force,
constituting the base even existence. Its theory is that all the human evils
result from blockings in the flow of this force. Consequently, it concentrates
its work on the manner of collecting, of using, of developing and, generally, of
handling the orgone.
It
is the unit involuntary contraction and the total expansion of the organization
at the time of the acme during the sexual pressure.
Spontaneous
movement
Muscular
attitude and body Expression, the reflex orgastic about which Reich speaks is
not the orgasme, it is a total participation of the body in breathing, with
light undulatory movements (or sometimes convulsifs) of the head towards the
basin. At the time of the sexual orgastic discharge, this spontaneous movement
makes it possible the feeling to extend at all the organization. It also makes
it possible to reach a complete energy discharge.
Today,
because of its involuntary character and the prevalence of the anxiety on
the pleasure, this reflex is removed at the majority of the human ones.
Reich
introduces dice 1933 this concept of emotional plague into its work : " characterial
analysis ". It devotes the final chapter of the book to him. It
defines it " without pejorative nuance ", writes it, " like
a chronic biopathy of the organization, direct consequence of repression, on a
vast scale, genital love ".
Contagious
And
it continues, " it took an epidemic character and, during millenia, no
people were saved by it ". It has the capacity to contaminate whole
masses, of corrompre nations, to destroy populations but remains unable to
generate only one positive measurement when it is a question of improving
economic misery.
One
sees Reich well here passing from a position concerning the individuals making
the experiment of repression in their sexuality, on a social scale (epidemic
character) and anthropological (time and people).
Its
origin
The
emotional plague, inculcated to the child as of the first days of its life,
finds its origin at the individuals in genital frustration appears in what it
names " the characterial armours ", or unconscious
devices set up by the subjects to neutralize the difficulties which they test to
assume, in the evolution of the conflicts, their libidinaux needs vis-a-vis with
the fear of the punishment.
Ego takes its final form there while the of libido restrictions imposed by the
company determine changes which appear in personal and social positions rigid
determining a world of immutable and automatic reactions, as if the personality
were covered with an armour, of a rigid shielding able to absorb the blows
carried against it by the external and interior world.
Its
aspects
The
extent of the armour thus determines the lack of capacity of the individual to
balance his energy industry. And the armoured life dominates the social life and
appears in its c?ur by various features described by Reich :
·
The plethora of words and concepts which are only used to divert guiding
principles of the life,
·
A disproportionate enthusiasm when the armoured life meets the
existential and simple laws of the not armoured life,
·
A total disablement of the individuals armoured to apply simple laws to a
practice which shows a persecution full with hatred with regard to all that is
referred to a not armoured life.
Cause
reactions
These
individual processes are thus with the collective root of the emotional plague.
Indeed, as of-that one touches with the causes of the emotional plague, one
inevitably causes a reaction of anguish or anger. And to state at once the
expressed consequences of them :
·
On the individual level by the diseases of the c?ur, of cancer or
schizophrenia. The acute crises are caused, at the subjects, by disorders of the
love life. While the normal individual justifies his sexual behavior by his
need for love, the pestiféré ascetic one will justify its sexual debility by
its requirements morals. While the quite bearing individual does not seek to
impose his way of life, pestiféré addresses in priority its maxims to its
environment and tends to impose on the other its way of life by the force.
·
As regards the social aspects by a primitive sexual economy determining
the social categories of the authoritative family, of the ideology tribale and
the patriarchal domination...
The
action and the reason given to justify the emotional plague are never harmonized.
The real reason always is hidden, replaced by an apparent reason.
A
pandemic character
The
emotional plague takes time with other a pandemic character and appears by
gigantic blazes of sadism and criminality and to quote : enquiry, Fascisms
brown or red like places of its experiment.
In
ordinary time, it is enough, says Reich, to remove of them the causes, the
disorders of the love life, so that the disease disappears. As regards the
social aspects, it is not used for nothing to mobilize the Police force, it will
do nothing but increase the evil. But, it prevents, as
of-that one touches with his causes, one causes crises of anguish or of anger
because it is strongly rationalized and maintained by secondary impulses.
Because the real reason is always hidden by an apparent reason.
And Reich to then propose true a sociothérapie founded on the recognition of
this emotional disease to high degree of contagiousness. It passes initially by
a precise identification of the phenomenon.
Fields
of the emotional plague
The
pestiféré ascetic one justifies its sexual debility by requirements morals and
the pestiféré individual is distinguished from the bearing good by the fact
that its maxims are not addressed to itself but, initially, and especially with
his environment. If the bearing good likes to discuss its reasons, pestiféré
puts itself in anger when they are evoked. And, for Reich, no individual cannot
be free of the provisions to the emotional plague. He thus describes the
fields where it prevails :
·
Mysticism
" in what it has of more destructive ",
·
Passive
efforts or credits towards authoritarianism,
·
Moralism,
·
biopathies
of the vital autonomism, (we are in 1933),
·
the
policy partisane,
·
the
disease of the family,
·
sadistic
systems of education,
·
denouncement
and slandering,
·
authoritative
bureaucracy,
·
the
ideology warmonger and imperialist,
·
gangsterism
and criminal antisocial activities,
·
pornography,
·
racial
hatred.
Devastations
of the emotional plague
The
parallel is as of-at the time easy between the emotional plague and the social
evils against which the movements of release always fought.
For
Reich the emotional plague causes great devastations. It can appear in companies
however managed by honest and sincere people, that people reached of the
emotional plague often succeeded in crushing.
It is still present in the public opinion where the irrationalism of pestiférés
finds broad echoes. What makes it possible to include/understand, for example,
that the integrism, fundamentalism, dictatorship, or the passing fancies of such
powerful of this world have incredible consequences on million human beings.
The emotional plague is with the source of the enormous social nonsense which
controls us, when the love, work, knowledge are brought back to tiny
proportions, when the public life is outside asexual and internally
pornographic.
Ways
of the emotional plague
The
cause for Reich in is obvious : the blocking of the flow of energy
biological, sexual, at the majority of people. For him, the fight against the
social attacks of the emotional plague passes by:
·
The
implementation of personal processes, thus " the orgonthérapie ",
method of restoration of the orgone which aims at
dissolving the armours,
to find the direction of its energy and to positively
finalize it in
restoring its capacity to be liked.
·
The
setting in social processes, in order to develop the economy
sexual, which must work on various plans:
In
the field of the family
>>>>>>>
In the field of the family authoritative, coercive, integral part of an
authoritative company, rampart of the repressive social order, at the origin of
the feelings of blind fidelity and infantile obedience. Indeed, warns us Reich,
the political office of the family is double: she reproduces itself by
mutilating the individuals sexually and, in same time, she returns them
frightened by the life and apprehensive in front of the authority.
In
the field of the culture
>>>>>>>
In the field of the culture, and Reich to lay down at this one an objective :
to prepare a Cultural revolution founded on the autonomy of the individuals. It
starts obviously for him with the sexual release of the young people. Social
sexual repression is an extremely effective factor reactionary which supports
the institutions reactionaries thanks to the sexual anguish and with the sexual
guilt feeling anchored deeply in the exploited masses. It paralyses any
intellectual power criticizes, " ideological anchoring of the
authoritative system dominating in the characterial structures of the
individuals levelled in the mass ".
In
period of crisis
It
will have been understood that, for Reich, sexual repression consolidates any form of
authoritative domination. However, it observes that it prepares also the
characteristics of the rebellion while the authoritative powers reinforce for
the periods of crisis their pressure on the masses and their sexuality. And to
quote the brutal action of the Czechoslovakian State in May 1931 against
associations of scouts to which one had prohibited to be installed under the
same tents without certificate of marriage and the encyclical of the pope on the
marriage in 1930. Nowadays, it is enough to observe the movement
islamist to observe relationship between sexual repression and the authoritative
domination.
Social
sexual repression saps its own bases, and Reich quotes like direct expression of
the sexual crisis the delinquency of youth. It then predicts for the
twentieth century a phase important of social upheavals related to the desire of
the people to take advantage of their right to a happy life. "the
sexual revolution progresses, estimates it, no power of the world will
not stop its race".
Other
current forms
Reich,
which analyzes the social conditions with the data of its time, was far from
imagining the social movement of release of the youth, whose paroxystic top were,
in France, the events of May 1968. Unquestionable release but we will say, of
short duration on a social scale. Repression took today other forms, more
larval, less frontal but quite as effective while drowning the systems of
repression in the flood of images saturating with the Company of the Spectacle,
in the rise of insignificance on bottom of " juridicisation "
of the company.
In
the United States as in France
One
still smiles, on this side of the Atlantic, by hearing the accounts of American
academics from now on unable to receive their own students of the other sex
without character reference, or incredible written, signed engagements each
weekend by young American and concerning with the detailed prediction of their
sexual behavior when they want "to leave" with their girl friend for
one evening. More close to us, one found in the program of several candidates to
the Presidency of the Republic in 2002, calling with the restoration of the
"values" known as morals, of similar mislayings. There still the
analyses of Reich touching with the emotional plague are always of topicality
when " individuals are able to dress very whole
humanity in a nightshirt of the same model as theirs, because they are unable to
tolerate natural sexuality at the others ".
In
the sports
Admittedly,
this repression is today, at least outside, less official, it does not borrow of
them less such effective ways: publicity, managed insignificance with high
amounts of the visual audio shows, "sporting machinery".
To
find the capacity of love
To
fight against the emotional plague efficiently, it is to restore the deep
psychic layer of the man bus in the depths lives and works natural sexuality,
the spontaneous joy of work, the capacity of love. This layer is the
biological core of the human structure, it is unconscious and dreaded, because
in dissension with authoritative education. Its recognition and its
actualization are however for Reich, the only manner of dominating social misery.
To
release energy
To
fight against sexual misery, to remove inhibitions, to produce for each one a
self-regulation in conformity with the requirements of the sexual economy, it is
to allow the positive restoration of the responsibility for each one vis-a-vis
the life.
Reich sees in the suppression of the psychic diseases and asocial sexuality the
factor which will support the déprise emotional plague and the release of
imprisoned vital energy.
The
muscular armour is related to an energy operation, him even related to a trait
of character. It is the crystallization of the psychic mechanisms in solidified
body tensions, armour which, formed once, cannot be reached by a purely
psychological and verbal approach.
The
reports of Reich are as follows:
1.
The body has a memory which retains in the form of tensions, diseases, postures,
of the emotions and the not-solved traumatisms. Those are encapsulated in a
whole of contradictions muscular, chronic, developed to survive and which are
the inscription in the body of the psychological mechanisms.
2.
Sexual energy and psychic energy circulate in the undulatory body of way: the
impulse comes from the basin and is reflected to the head.
3.
The circulation of this energy and, by the fact even, the feeling, the emotion,
breathing and vitality will be forced by the muscular tensions installed on this
central course.
4.
This state prevents the abandonment with the orgasme, but also with any other
experiment: to invest themselves in its work, to listen to music, to look at a
work of art, to be in a relation between intimacy and somebody of other, to play,
etc.
5.
The
muscular tensions are installed in seven segments which gather particular
muscles attached on the front, the sides and the back of the body and thus form
seven rings (eyepiece, oral, cervical, thoracic, diaphragmatic, abdominal and
pelvic). When the contractions are frequently repeated (a programmed reflex),
they become chronic and fit deeply in the attitude of the body.
Demonstrations
The
globality of the muscular attitudes appearing by chronic muscular spasms (in
particular stop of breathing) requested at the time of a too intense emotional
movement (breathe! ) that an individual develops like a block against the
sensational discovery of the affects and the feelings of body, appearing in
particular in the form of anguish, of rage and sexual excitation.
Symptoms
biopathic
Inaptitude
or impotence with the orgasme (orgasme impotence) or absence of aptitude
for the orgasme... It is today the human characteristic most important at the
common run of people, and - by the overwhelming pressure of biological energy
(orgone) inside the organization - the source of energy of all kinds of neuroses
and symptoms biopathic.
And
breathing
Thus
the dissolution of the muscular tensions which are the somatic part of
repression, is for Reich the guarantee to release one of the three excitations
which it considers fundamental: sexuality, anguish and anger. It allows also the
emergence of vegetative flows, as well as memories related to the events
traumatisants. It will finally highlight that "the inhibition of breathing
is the fundamental mechanism of the neurosis in general".
The
perception of the function of living and its bioenergetic demonstrations is
unbalanced in the human animal by the existence of a caractéro-muscular armour,
fruit of the need for defense of the organization vis-a-vis to the aggression of
outside.
Orgastic
impotence
This aggression caused by the social system and the family ecosystem at the child and the teenager prevents the development of the libido and represses its emotive demonstrations, causes a sexual sealing and prevents the development of the function of the orgasme. It thus creates people impotent orgastiquement, incompetents to like, and carried to the sociological tender which allows the maintenance of a social system. This one which tends to the slow destruction of alive, in educated "and compulsive common life an", with moments of sadism and destruction irrational, implosive, in the form of massacres, wars...
Wilhelm
Reich FC the first, in the years 1930, to introduce the concept of" unconscious
body " and to try to
identify the physical traces of the psychic pains. The muscular
contractions generated by our emotions, said it, carry out to the formation of a
" characterial armour " the purpose of which is to preserve
us suffering, but which has also like consequence to prevent the circulation of
energy.
Attitudes
of defense
the
characterial armour is the globality of the characterial attitudes that an
individual develops like defense against the emotional excitations, by having a
characterial rigidity, a lack of contact, an attitude "mortifère".
The characterial armour has a functional identity with the muscular armour.
With
" paralysed emotional ", he will write at the end of his
life : " You can only collect and take, you can neither yield,
nor to give, because the fundamental attitude of your body is that of reserve,
the refusal and the spite; you are seized by panic when you feel the original
movement of the Love and the Gift of oneself ".
A
protection
All
the human ones live the conflict, the lack of affection, incomprehension,
handling and the other difficult situations inherent with the relations inter
personal. The child protects himself from these painful experiments thanks to
psychological mechanisms like the refusal, the lapse of memory, the
disconnection, and with physiological mechanisms like the contraction of the
muscles limiting the mobility of the articulations, the blocking of the
emotional expression (cries, tears, rage).
The
dialectical one of the rigid characterial armour is as follows :
·
Play
instituted in rule
·
Rigidity
like energy contraction,
·
The
expansion as distresses worse than the anguish, which is a contraction.
Example of construction of a characterial armour :
(among good
of others)
1)
At the beginning, the child wants to make irradiate the energy of his core,
2)
Then his/her mother (most probably) involves herself in all her actions
and makes him feel
smothering.
3)
to protect itself from this intrusion in its independence, it
start by rebelling and
starts violent demonstrations
and hostile with respect
to his/her parents.
4)
This reaction is very badly perceived environment which reinforces
pressure and can exert an
emotional blackmail.
5)
the subject is found with the impression that if it expresses sound
to be choked and directed
dissatisfaction, it will be private of love,
of attention , and
it will incur a risk of castration. It develops
culpability and
distresses.
6)
It thus founds a mask of kindness and attention, of small
model child, under whom
broods an aggressiveness and a hatred
savage, lends to explode.
7)
This mask is a shielding of flesh and muscles, the child is
die-at the time liability
and subjected, and develops an energy complex
of self-checking and
auto- visualization to make sure that sound
behavior is perfect and
worthy of love.
8)
This projection, with the wire of time, is not done only on
parents but also on the
friends, superiors and especially, them
people of the opposite
sex...
9)
There is then scission between the reality of nice mask the "with all
it
world "and
driven back - violence and phantasm of destruction of the medium
outside.
Like
a stratification
In
short, one can say that the characterial armour is the stratification, a kind of
enkystement, all the experiments passed, all the forces of defenses installation
by the subject . It is the fortress behind which each one is cut off to
organize its resistances. All occurs like if the infantile experiments the
energy repressions and loads which are dependent for them formed deposits in
being it, involved it to always react in the same way, prohibited any initiative
to him.
W
Written Reich:
"Thus,
a single aspect of the infantile structure are preserved and expressed by two
different ways: by the contents of the acts (matter and representations of the
individual) and by their form. Let us note that the analysis of the contents
leaves intact - in spite of the unit of the contents and the form - the latter;
that this "form" is used as retirement with the psychic contents that
the analysis of the contents already seems to have eliminated or have made
available to the conscience; that finally the analysis of the "form"
is particularly effective when it is a question of releasing from the affects
"(Wilhelm Reich, characterial analysis.)
Towards
the végétothérapie
The
végétothérapie is in the beginning, a modification of the usual technique of
the psychoanalytical practice in the analysis of the symptoms, by the
introduction of the concept of character and characterial resistance into the
technical process. The discovery of the characterial armour asked for the
development of a new technique (végétothérapie).
Later,
the discovery of the energy of the orgone in the organization (the bioénergie)
and the concentration of the energy of the orgone present in the atmosphere in
an accumulator of orgone required fuller developments in the caractéro-analytical
végétothérapie by its inclusion in the therapy orgonale biophysics (see
physical and psychiatric therapy by the orgone.)
Typestyles
With
regard to the manifestations of the emotional plague, Reich was devoted to a
comparative study of three psychosociological types under consideration in the
fields of the thought, the action and sexuality. They are the types or
characters "genital", "nevrotic" and "pestiféré".
Their comparison makes it possible to highlight the processes of behavior of
"pestiféré".
oooOOooo
Three
typestyles :
Genital
character
The
first, the genital one, presented like most sociable and psychologically
balanced, judge according to mental processes guided by rationality, it is
accessible to the real arguments, knows a major harmony between motivation, goal
and action. Its sexual life is primarily determined by the natural laws and
fundamental of biological energy.
It
regards work as result of a creative process and does not think of interfering
with its normal unfolding. Relegating its personal interests to the second plan
in the interpersonal conflicts, it is capable of dialogue and handing-over in
question.
oooOOooo
Character
nevrotic
The
second, the névrotique one, also tries to direct his thought according
to data and of objective processes but as its thought is also subjected to the
pressures of the sexual damning up, it conforms also and simultaneously to the
need for avoiding the displeasure as a practitioner the art of dodging. It
generally drove back its irrationality and if it is aware of the inhibition of
its vital functions, it is without jalouser the quite bearing individuals. It is
not opposed to progress.
It
lives in sexual resignation or is devoted in secrecy to some perverse practice,
its orgastic impotence being accompanied by a continual nostalgia of the
happiness of the love. Confronted with the sexual problems, its reaction is
rather dictated by the anguish that by hatred, its armour aiming its own
sexuality more than that of the others. It is more or less inhibited in its
aptitude for work and finds no pleasure there, being unaware of enthusiasm. It
is subjected initially to the opinion of others.
oooOOooo
Pestiféré
character
The
third, pestiféré, is distinguished from nevrotic by a more or less
destructive social activity, its thought being primarily given by irrational
concepts. It always has ready conclusions all, being inaccessible to
deterioration, and aims in its judgements only at rationalizing preexistent
or "prejudged"
irrational
conclusions. The opposition to progress and the attachment with the tradition are
its constant references. Intolerant, it does not support any idea able to sweep
its prejudices.
A
refusal of the natural love
The
true reason for its action is never that which it indicates but it believes
seriously in the goals that it assigns, acting under the effect of a structural
compulsion, under the constraint of sound badly. It hates and fights all that
comes to oppose it. Its sexuality always sadistic and pornographic, is
characterized by the simultaneous presence of sexual lasciviousness and sadistic
claims morals. It develops a savage hatred of all that can cause orgastic ideas.
From where its intolerance with regard to all that is natural love and its great
capacity to be developed, with satisfaction for him, an elaborate system of
denouncement and slandering.
A
sadistic slanderer
He
hates work and turns with predilection to the mystical or politicking ideology.
Never not completing anything, it is unable of an organic and progressive work.
Victim of an authoritative and obsessional education, it rises against it, but
its revolt does not have any rational social objective.
It
mistakes its partners, the reason for its interpersonal relations being the
desire to cut down them by using preferably sexual slandering, calumny with fine
sadists, allotting his own lubricity to its victims.
FORMATION
OF THE CHARACTER, SEXUAL REPRESSION
RETURN
TO THE GENERAL SYNOPSIS
A
good camouflage
The
relation between the character and repression resides precisely in this that it
is the need for driving back the instinctual desires which gives rise to the
character. We see that, in addition, the formation of the character makes
superfluous a great number of repressions, owing to the fact that instinctual
energies which, in the case of the simple repression, remain floating, are
absorbed by the formation of the character.
Thus,
the installation of a feature of character indicates that a problem of
repression found its solution, or it makes useless a process of repression, or
it transforms it into a structure relatively rigid and accepted by Ego.
A
difficult elimination
The
process of the formation of the character thus corresponds entirely to the
tendency of Ego to put in harmony the various psychic desires. This made include/understand
why the elimination of repressions having been used for the formation of well
defined features of character is infinitely more difficult than the elimination
of repressions which are at the origin of a symptom.
A
manner of surviving
The
character is thus at the same time a structure and a mechanism of defence in
itself. It is, to summarize, initially and before a whole narcissistic mechanism
of protection to the means of which the person manages year in year out to
survive. In other words, it can be positive and adaptive or negative and morbid,
even biopathic (as in the case of cancer).
Here
are which explains why there is a precise relationship between the starting
point of the genesis of the character, i.e. the protection of Ego counters the
current dangers, on the one hand, and the later function of the character
consisting in defending it to Me counters the dangerous instinctual impulses,
other. Indeed, the evolution carrying out of the primitive situation to modern
civilization required considerable restrictions of a of libido nature (and
others).
The
human development was characterized by unceasingly increased sexual repressions.
More particularly, the installation of the patriarchal company led to the
disorganization and the repression of the genitality. As civilization progressed,
the external dangers - at least for the individuals - decreased.
To
draw aside the anguish of a threat
As
regards the social aspects, on the other hand, the dangers to the life of the
individual increased. The wars imperialists and the class struggle present as
many dangers as the threats of primitive times. To draw aside the consecutive
anguishes with real threats (coming from the external world), the individuals
were in the obligation to inhibit their impulses: there is not the right to pass
to the attack, even if one dies of hunger; the sexual instincts are held in
failure by social standards and prejudices.
Any
infringement to the standards constitutes for the individual a danger: it is
likely to incur a punishment for "flight" or infantile masturbation,
the homosexual one or the incestueux risk the prison.
In
measurement even or the fear of an attack coming from outside is avoided, the
damming up of libido and the damning up of the anguish increase; there is narrow
interdependence between the damning up of the anguish and the anguish caused by
external threats: the reduction in the one causes the increase in the other and
vice versa. The intrepid one satisfied its libidinaux requirements while running
the risk for social ostracism.
And
the principle of the pleasure?
Teconomic
kings principles chair the formation of the character:
the fact of avoiding the anguish (real)
storage of the anguish (damning up).
the pleasure principle.
The process of the formation of the character is started by a movement
carrying the psychic organization to escape from the dangers which the
satisfaction of its instincts involves.
But as soon as the character is formed, the pleasure principle acts so that the
character serf not only, like the symptom, for fine defensives but gets, in a
disguised form, instinctual pleasures. Thus, the genital-narcissistic character
is not protected only from the influences from the external world, but it
alleviates also a good part of its libido by drawing up narcissistic
relationship between Ego and it Ideal ego.
A
relaxation of the tension
The
energy of the driven back instinctual impulses, in particular the impulses prégénitales
and sadists, is largely absorbed by the installation and the maintenance of the
mechanism of protection. It is not a question, of course, of an instinctual
satisfaction in the direction of a direct and immediate pleasure, but it did not
succeed about it less, as in the disguised satisfaction of the symptom, with the
relaxation of the instinctual tension.
Although
different, on the phenomenologic level, of direct satisfaction, the relaxation
of the tension does not have of it less the same economic function: in both
cases, the tension decrease. Instinctual energy is consumed by the process
leading to the assembly and alloy of the contents of character (identifications,
reaction-formations, etc).
To
finish by a direct satisfaction
The
impulses not used in the process of the formation of the character push with
direct satisfaction, unless they are not driven back. The nature of direct
satisfaction is tributary of the form of the character. The choice between the
impulses used for the formation of the character and those allowed with direct
satisfaction does not determine only the difference between the good bearing and
the patients but also between the various typestyles.
There
N ' is certainly no question of returning in systematic analyses of our acts...
but a better comprehension of its own "internal" mechanism, what a
richness! I leave the principle that the more I know my manner of functioning,
the more my capacity is tall for m to open towards L ' different and to help.
A small extract of L ' installation of our first
neuroses, according to Freud:
In
the model freudien, the neurosis consists of two phases: an infantile phase and
a later phase of release. The neurosis is always the consequence of early
phenomena during the time oedipienne. Remember: attraction towards the relative
of opposite sex and aggressiveness towards the of the same person sex (positive
Oedipus). But the child, vis-a-vis the threat of imminent castration, must give
up certain satisfactions (death of the father, love of the mother) and thus give
up his objects. Finally the child prefers to preserve his narcissistic integrity
rather than to reach a satisfaction which could bring nuisances to him. Also let
us have with the spirit which the parents generally do not invest their child
libidinalement what ensures uselessness the child of its efforts and also pushes
it to give up this mode of satisfaction. With the end of this period oedipienne
the super-ego was formed, it was born from a successful identification with the
parents and makes it possible Ego to control the complex of?dipe. The child can
then turn to other objects and gives up investing his parents libidinalement. In
the case of a neurosis the child "authenticates" does not manage to
divert his libido of his first objects (dad, mom). This is why one speaks here
about a fixing at an infantile stage. The conflict thus remains latent and
driven back hopelessly tries to cross resistances. The subject fight counter
these repressions with traditional mechanisms of defence but, in case failure of
these mechanisms, the symptom seems the manifestation of driven back.
The
neuroses are thus distinguished on nature from the symptoms which depend them
same on the mechanisms of defence brought into play. In hysteria, repression is
complete while in the obsessional neurosis it is partial what calls other
mechanisms of defence.
RETURN
TO THE GENERAL SYNOPSIS
To
develop contrary ideologies with our biology
All
the political reflexion of Reich will consist in analyzing why and how the
ideologies of the order, repetition develop, of fidelity, whereas they go
against our fundamental biological reactions. From all these reflexions will be
born the végétothérapie which is the base of the bioénergie, the goal being
Re-to mobilize the neurovégétatif system by respiratory movements.
The
bioénergie thus modifies the natural energy by a work of emotional release,
muscular relaxation, respiratory amplifications and of verbal analysis of the
body and emotional feelings. All these actions acting on the plasmatic currents.
To
see the body
This
theory was elaborate in the Fifties by Alexander LOWEN, disciple of REICH. It
takes again the concepts of "reflex orgastic" and "muscular
armour". The body keeps the trace of all the lived emotions, which one can
diagnose by the "reading of the body". It is necessary to hold account
in first of the general pace, balance, the total various postures. Then one
second reading will detail the various body segments, like the glance, the
wearing of head, the tension of the neck, the thorax, breathing, the spinal
column, the position of the basin. All that made it possible LOWEN to establish
a characterial typology:
·
Schizoid character
·
Oral character
·
Character psychopathe
·
Character masochist
·
Rigid character
To
support an awakening
The
analyst bioenergetician thus attaches a great importance to the body expressions
- breathing, the posture, the ton of the voice, the rate/rhythm of the steps -
which reveal the structure of the system of defense of a person and the type of
existential fight to him that it carries out. Body work that they undertake
initially consists in developing the attention with the feelings. Then, with the
assistance in particular of respiratory exercises, of postures, movements as
well as manual pressures of the therapeutist, one supports the awakening of the
old muscular tensions become chronic.
With
vigorous exercises
The
objective is to identify defenses that, child, one built to face difficult
situations, then to soften them and to refit them. By adopting positions which
generate strong tensions - for example lying on the back on a large balloon,
chest open and released, or through sometimes vigorous exercises which can cause
cries, tears and anger - one creates conditions favourable with intense
emotional releases. It is a question, at the same time, of recovering all the
energy which was to some extent " occupied " hiding and to
retain these emotions.
A
work of several years
As
for the verbal portion, it rises from the psychoanalytical roots of the approach
(of Freud, in Reich, Lowen) : the expert done there a work of analysis to
help the person to connect her words to its body expressions and its intimate
history. The objective is to help the person to live with her
emotions, considered as the " spontaneous movements of the
organization ".
The
bioenergetic analysis is defined as a " approach depths ".
It thus does not aim to simply making disappear from the symptoms, but helping a
person to tame and refit the structure of its personality; it is generally a
work of a few years. Certain experts also agree to work on short term with
specific problems.
A
means of releasing its potentials
This
therapy was developed in an original manner by doctors (Reich, Lowen and
Pierrakos) to look after people with the catches with problems of neurosis (depression,
anxiety) and problems of a sexual or relational nature. Because of its body
component, it would be also adapted for the treatment of the personality
disorders (like narcissism) and diseases of psychosomatic origin. The people in
good health can find a means there of passing through an existential crisis, of
looking further into their emotional life and of releasing their potential of
joy and creativity.
Limits
of the method
The
methodology of the bioénergie would be marvellous if it were able to give to
the individual the means of setting up of the healthy choices in conformity with
the human nature, like the choice of the natural love, the abandonment of the
possessivity, the jealousy, "appearing", of the "project" on
the other, etc. But in a social environment of particularly underhand emotional
plague, and vis-a-vis with therapeutists who refuse to engage in the name of the
deontology (respect of the choice of the individual) because they do not have
even the response for them, the patient will see the "ground very quickly
that it has just released" invaded again by brambles of the neurosis.
Without
a simultaneous teaching, concrete and reality of the rediscovery of the natural
love, the individual is not likely any to leave the jealousy, the possessivity,
the research of the capacity, the incapacity to feel and enjoy...
RETURN
TO THE GENERAL SYNOPSIS
Inventor,
scientist, psychiatrist, philosophical, sociologist, Reich wanted to be all that
at the same time. Its principal therapeutic tool, it manufactures it its own
hands:
To
concentrate the orgone, at experimental ends, it builds its first accumulators.
Those are kinds of cases made up of superimposed layers of wood, or another
organic matter, alternating with metal sheetings. The first are of reduced size;
Reich tries out them on healthy mice, then on cancerous mice. In December 1940,
the first accumulator of human use is brought into service.
The
accumulator of orgone is a box of the size of a phone box, whose walls are
composed in organic material and metal layers alternate. The user assoit inside
the box, in order to absorb the orgone which accumulates like heat in a
greenhouse. The concentrated orgone is supposed to cure diseases as different as
cancer, the impotence and the whole of the disorders related to sexual
repression. There are also models of more reduced size, such as the cover with
orgone and the funnel with orgone, which is used to direct invaluable energy
towards particular points of the human body.
THE
IRRUPTION OF SEXUAL MORALS
RETURN
TO THE GENERAL SYNOPSIS
Production and reproduction of sexual morals
Until
the appearance of economic interests, the sexual life is dominated by the laws
of the natural regulation which, it, is governed by the displeasure and pleasure
principle. These laws are often concretized in the forms of uses and of social
habits, they never aim at blocking sexual satisfaction but on the contrary to
support it.
Is needed a major anchoring
The
first outline of a anti-sexual morals arises under appearances of a requirement
formulated by a group holding, within the company, an economic power and policy
which it intends to ensure and increase vis-a-vis with the other members of the
company.
The
requirement of the profiteur thus becomes the morals of the person receiving
benefits. The sphere of production of
morals thus belongs to the group of the powerful ones.
However,
a formulated requirement once and for all, or a legislation, are not sufficient
to maintain a morals imposed. The continual contracting of the satisfaction of
the needs by external pressure would have as a consequence the need for
formulating and to impose new morals unceasingly, it would run up indeed in each
adult individual of the company against resistances and would be unable to be
maintained with long.
It
thus tends to a major anchoring in order to fill its social purpose.
Its influence must be felt during infancy as long as defenses of Ego are weak.
Born from the requirement external of a group, it must be transformed into a new
morals accepted by all the members of the company.
How
this change take place does? By the modification of the characterial structure
of the individuals levelled in the mass, modification occurring in the sexual
sphere thanks to the fear of the sexual punishment.
A slip: pleasure with the moralism
The
fear of being punished for sexual transgressions can repress with long the
sexual impulse only if it is withdrawn from the conscience, i.e. driven back,
and if it succeeds in mobilizing against the sexual impulse of the antagonistic
forces, and to anchor them to deepest of the person.
Thus,
the conflict which opposed at the origin it Me sexual in a hostile external
world transforms into a conflict between one Me in prey with the fear of the
punishment and one Me tending consciously to sexual satisfaction, in the final
analysis to lead in a state (momentarily) stable of one Me moral which
permanently chokes the driven back sexual instinct. Ego at one time turned
towards the pleasure slipped with the refusal of sexuality, with the moralism:
social morals reproduced in the individual.
Cultural requirement or individual morals?
As
this process applies to all the individuals subjected to the same anti-sexual
social condition, as the individuals thus modified act on their descendants in a
conscious manner not according to their driven back attitudes but their morals
attitudes, as the social condition is maintained and reproduced without stop the
requirements of the dominant layers, so that the continuous external social
pressure to act in the same direction, the refusal of sexuality, repression, and
the armoured character, enjoy triple protection which accentuates for as much
the social repression of the life.
It
is thus a question of not confusing production and reproduction of imposed
morals. The first appears like "cultural requirement", the
second like individual morals of all the members of the company, where, to speak
in a concrete way, like armour. Consequently, all the individuals are armoured,
i.e. rigid from the point of view bio-energetics, prone to the fear of the
pleasure, which, on its side leads to the orgastic impotence.
Intermediate links of repression
The
relationship between the social base and the ideological superstructure is thus
not direct, the formation of the ideology takes place by a series of
intermediate links which we will summarize in a somewhat diagrammatic way:
1)
given Evolution of the company, reciprocal social reports/ratios.
2)
given Interests of a social group or a class.
3)
Requirements morals in conformity with these interests formulated against the
members of the company.
4)
Effect of these requirements on the needs for the individuals levelled in the
mass, limitation of the satisfaction of the needs, generation of social fear,
etc.
5)
Anchoring of the requirements morals of the group in the individuals levelled in
the mass, by the transformation of their needs, the modification of their
characterial structures in accordance with new morals: continual reproduction of
the requirements by interiorization.
6)
interior Acceptance of the morals imposed by the individuals levelled in the
mass: formation of the characterial armour.
7)
Formation of the individual ideology which changes by the addition of the
individuals levelled in the mass into imposed social morals (reproduced).
And the victim supports passively
This social
morals anchored in all the individuals and reproducing unceasingly, reacts on
the socio-economic basis in a preserving direction:
·
exploited approves itself the
economic order guaranteeing its exploitation
·
the victim of repression
approves itself or passively supports the sexual order which limits its
satisfaction bio-energetics and makes it sick
·
it blocks any emotional
movement towards an evolution promising the satisfaction of its needs to him.
·
Thus, imposed morals arrives
to its socio-economic ends by the means of the armour.
Goals of the Company reactionary
Let
us consider to illustrate these facts a very current example:
The company reactionary supports sexual repression by all the means at its
disposal.
- It refuses, because it is opposed to any life, suppression of the legislations
prohibiting the abortion, although these legislations do not fill any more, for
a long time, their goal consisting in creating an industrial reserve army.
- It fights propaganda in favour of contraception and limit the function of
sexuality to procreation;
- It is drawn up violently against any reform of the marriage.
- It represses like at one time youthful sexuality.
- It does not manage to remove the prostitution and the venereal diseases
because it holds for good more important the " standing " of
the women and the girls.
How these factors reactionaries act
It
is that social sexual repression and the characterial armour are extremely
effective factors reactionaries: impossible to give up for their retarding
purpose in the authoritative company, because:
1)
they strongly support the institutions reactionaries of all kinds thanks to the
sexual anguish and to the sexual guilt feeling, anchored deeply in the exploited
masses;
2)
they support the family and matrimonial order imposed which, to be maintained,
needs the sexual atrophy;
3)
they control the children with the parents, the adults with the official
authority, by inculcating to the individuals levelled in the mass the fear of
the authority;
4)
they paralyse the power intellectual and critical, as well as the spirit of
initiative of the oppressed individuals, because sexual repression consumes much
bio-energy which would appear differently, in the intellectual and emotional
plan, in a rational way;
5)
they atrophy at many individuals the motility bio-energetics and prevent the
individual thus inhibited and paralysed to revolt against social iniquity.
To repress any life: it is the sociological significance
All
that is not other thing only the ideological anchoring of the authoritative
system dominating in the characterial structures of the individuals levelled in
the mass and aiming at repressing any life. It is there the sociological
significance of sexual repression in the company dominated by groups of
political power.
One
does not need much instruction but an only little intellectual courage to
recognize that the colonial powers did not bring to the primitive people the
Christian faith, clothing and "morals" by a preoccupation with a
civilization, but to inculcate to each individual the servile spirit, without
forgetting to weaken it and controlling it by alcohol.
But of contradictions which will end up abolishing it
This
anchoring of the mentality of slave in the characterial structures of the
primitive men, who allows to make the saving of supervisors and bludgeons, takes
place best by the control of the energy which spouts out of the satisfied
genitality.
Since
it was possible to discover the sociological significance of sexual repression,
it cannot be difficult to also detect contradictions which he generates and
which will end up abolishing it. Because if sexual repression consolidates any
form of authoritative domination, it is not less true than it saps also its
bases by the sexual distress which it necessarily generates.
If
it controls youth with the will of the adults, it prepares also its sexual
rebellion. Contradictions of sexual repression seek to be solved in the sexual
crisis which shakes more and more the authoritative company since the beginning
OF the 20° century. Its intensity is subjected to fluctuations which correspond
to the fluctuations of the economic crises, of which it is directly tributary.
Juvenile delinquency, direct expression
The
degradation of the material company of the masses does not cause only the
dislocation of the chains family and marital imposed on sexuality, also with the
rebellion of the food impulse the acuity of the sexual needs specifies. It is
there the extremely simple explanation of the thesis of the " decline
of morals" in times of crisis.
Social
sexual repression thus saps its own bases by causing a variation unceasingly
more marked between the need for appeasing of the sexual tension on the one hand
and the external and interior possibilities to reach that point of the other.
Social phenomena such as the "juvenile delinquency" are the direct
expression of the sexual crisis. Very often, the term of "offence"
covers only the pressure achieved before the genital act authorized by the law.
Does the sexual revolution progress?
Under
no circumstances would it make of doubt that very whole humanity entered since
the beginning of the xxe century an absolutely new phase of social upheavals.
The life started to revolt against all the modes of repression. The human
masses, still unconscious of the nature and the finality of these upheavals,
misled by the stupidity of politicians ignoramuses and limited, deprived of
guides and dedicated to chaos, are assembled on the social scene to take
advantage of their right to a happy life.
Perhaps
out of date and tired political systems will be able during some time still to
misuse the authentic aspirations of the men and to mislead them. But no doubt is
more possible : the sexual revolution progresses and no power of the world
will stop its race. it is necessary simply a rational direction for him to
enable him to reach its but.(Extrait from: http://www.sospsy.com/Bibliopsy/Biblio9/biblio043.htm )