It is not unusual to regard vegetotherapy as a sort of sexual therapy. In this, I deeply disagree. It could, therefore, be appropriate to say something about my conception of the role of sexuality in the individual, and my view on sexuality in children. Reich(1971) says:…. “The sexual-economic theory may be expressed in some few sentences.
The psychic health depends upon the orgastic potency, i.e. the ability to give oneself in the natural sexual act. Psychic illness is a result of a disturbance in the natural ability for love. The healing of psychic disturbances primarily is dependent on the establishing of the natural capability of love. Under natural conditions, the energy of life is regulating itself without forced duty or forced moral.
Antisocial behavior emerges from sexual urge which exists because natural sexuality has been suppressed. People who are being brought up in an atmosphere of life-and sex denial acquire anxiety for pleasure, which is physiologically deeply rooted in chronic muscle tensions.”(.16/17).
The formulation in this section of Reich is in itself not so difficult to follow. His statement that the healing of psychic disturbances demands the establishment of the capability of love is also not especially difficult to accept if we by love mean the capability of establishing deep and binding relationships to other people on the bodily as well as on the emotional/cognitive level.
If one master this and enters such relationships in devotion, respect and with joint growth on all levels as a starting point, then this is directly antagonistic to a neurotic relationship. It is also not difficult to accept that people brought up in an atmosphere of sexual renunciation acquire pleasure anxiety.
The child’s sexuality is just a matter of the child’s ability to experience pleasure in his own body. Stern (1985) says:…The infant is thus seen as an excellent reality tester. Reality at this stage is never distorted for defensive reasons” (s. 11).
The consequence of what Stern says is great. It tells us – if it is so – that the child has not developed defense mechanisms which can cope with the strain that the child is exposed to. This must mean that the child’s experiences are a bodily totality, the pleasure as well as the sanctions.
Orgasm in children is common, but this orgasm is directly connected with the total bodily experience and to the child itself as its bodily being. Sanctions and punishment in this area interfere directly with the child’s body because the child’s acknowledging the main category is his body.
This leads to punishment interfering with the acknowledging-categories and is not diminished by a developed defense. This may have negative consequences for the child’s ability to experience pleasure and its ability to acknowledge the physical side of life. This may lead to desire reactivating such a traumatic happening on an unconscious level, and the individual reacts to pleasure impulses with experienced anxiety, without knowing what created it to begin with, as this is repressed.
It is more difficult to follow Reich (1971) when he says: The degree of seriousness of every psychic illness is directly connected with the grade of the seriousness of the genital disturbance. The prospect of cure depends directly upon the possibility of establishing the ability of genital satisfaction. (p.100,) Likewise his continuation on this: The genital disturbance is not, as earlier assumed, one symptom among many others, it is the symptom of the neurosis itself. (p.100)
There are several reasons why I can’t accept this. The one is empiric, what we can also call clinical experience. Here I lean towards Schelderup (1988) who to a large degree expresses the experience I have myself and also those of Lindèn. Schelderup says: ” I have more and more come to the conclusion that the theory about the sexual causation of the neurosis solely or at least principally, is in reality due to a misunderstanding of the presenting facts.” (p.92.) He continues “…. a conflict of non-sexual character has created seclusion and thereby a general hampering of the active and self-assertion tendencies.” (p.96).
It becomes meaningfully related to my clinical practice when he says: “….The child has been given too strong a task of adjustment or exposed to heavy stress or a traumatic situation, to which he has been powerless, and unable to work through.” (p.97) Further: “….The child has staked all his forces, all his emotional life on something, then encounters an overpowering resistance and suffers defeat. All roads to usual outlets of emotions are closed. The child is completely powerless and becomes overwhelmed by his impressions. Such an overwhelming of impressions towards which one is powerless creates anxiety. The child will then also later react with anxiety and quite instinctively try to avoid things which in any way might lead to a similar helpless situation. But as a consequence of this, he will be more or less paralyzed in his ability to once more enter into anything wholeheartedly. Many impulses and emotions are automatically restrained and cut off. (p. 97,).
The importance of this to which Schelderup calls attention is that traumatic experiences of non-sexual character can also interfere and disturb/limit the organisms total development of life. This lacking capability of life development will, of course, interfere with the individuals ability of full sexual devotion, and disturb or twist this.
The other thing is the structural level. By structural I mean the organism’s structure biologically as well as intra psychically during the very first years of life. I lean towards Trevarten (87) and Stern (85).
If it is so, as modern infant research seems to show, that the child already from birth experiences as well as seeks out states of pleasure, as for instance mutual communicating creates in the child, as emotional synchronization also seems to generate pleasure, and last but not least, that this experience is associated with bodily activity, stimulation, and excitation and experienced as pleasurable by the child. If all pleasure in its starting point is bodily, then it must be the child’s experience of the body as a category of acknowledgment, which is placed under pressure by frustrations of the natural extroverted seeking and exploring activities of the child.
It is the body’s actual acting that is attacked, and it can therefore not be difficult to imagine that full devotion to the body may be re-established as a secondary effect when a primary contradiction is solved.
The pelvis reflex can be looked upon as such a primary capacity in the body that was present originally, and that it re-appears as an indicator that the patient again is able to
experience pleasure as a bodily totality. Sexuality then becomes a possible potential of knowledge for man, on the same footing as other bodily, thought and emotional states.
Fascism as a cultural negation to a biological contradiction – upright standing
The collapse of feeling (through autonomic strain) produces a search for reconnection.
Christianity, in particular, preserves the vertical longing—the cry “upward,” the hope, the condition of transcendence through endless suffering. The longing for salvation can be seen as a desire for relief from the chronic stress and strain on the autonomic nervous system.
This idea challenges traditional views of spirituality and philosophy and highlights the intricate relationships between body, mind, and culture (the feeling). It encourages us to consider the potential somatic roots of cultural and theological expressions, and how our bodily – emotional experiences shape our understanding of the world and our place within it.
Thank you Dr Crist for this timely article. As a longtime student of Orgonomy, I was able to follow much of what you've written here.
This is a personal response:
When I was first exposed to Reich, his teachings were difficult for me to grasp. Now, living in America today,
I have an experiential template upon which to map Reich's teachings regarding fascism. This excites me. I have been searching for a way to more deeply understand what is happening in my country today.
Your excellent review has opened a path forward for me.
Something about Sexuality.
It is not unusual to regard vegetotherapy as a sort of sexual therapy. In this, I deeply disagree. It could, therefore, be appropriate to say something about my conception of the role of sexuality in the individual, and my view on sexuality in children. Reich(1971) says:…. “The sexual-economic theory may be expressed in some few sentences.
The psychic health depends upon the orgastic potency, i.e. the ability to give oneself in the natural sexual act. Psychic illness is a result of a disturbance in the natural ability for love. The healing of psychic disturbances primarily is dependent on the establishing of the natural capability of love. Under natural conditions, the energy of life is regulating itself without forced duty or forced moral.
Antisocial behavior emerges from sexual urge which exists because natural sexuality has been suppressed. People who are being brought up in an atmosphere of life-and sex denial acquire anxiety for pleasure, which is physiologically deeply rooted in chronic muscle tensions.”(.16/17).
The formulation in this section of Reich is in itself not so difficult to follow. His statement that the healing of psychic disturbances demands the establishment of the capability of love is also not especially difficult to accept if we by love mean the capability of establishing deep and binding relationships to other people on the bodily as well as on the emotional/cognitive level.
If one master this and enters such relationships in devotion, respect and with joint growth on all levels as a starting point, then this is directly antagonistic to a neurotic relationship. It is also not difficult to accept that people brought up in an atmosphere of sexual renunciation acquire pleasure anxiety.
The child’s sexuality is just a matter of the child’s ability to experience pleasure in his own body. Stern (1985) says:…The infant is thus seen as an excellent reality tester. Reality at this stage is never distorted for defensive reasons” (s. 11).
The consequence of what Stern says is great. It tells us – if it is so – that the child has not developed defense mechanisms which can cope with the strain that the child is exposed to. This must mean that the child’s experiences are a bodily totality, the pleasure as well as the sanctions.
Orgasm in children is common, but this orgasm is directly connected with the total bodily experience and to the child itself as its bodily being. Sanctions and punishment in this area interfere directly with the child’s body because the child’s acknowledging the main category is his body.
This leads to punishment interfering with the acknowledging-categories and is not diminished by a developed defense. This may have negative consequences for the child’s ability to experience pleasure and its ability to acknowledge the physical side of life. This may lead to desire reactivating such a traumatic happening on an unconscious level, and the individual reacts to pleasure impulses with experienced anxiety, without knowing what created it to begin with, as this is repressed.
It is more difficult to follow Reich (1971) when he says: The degree of seriousness of every psychic illness is directly connected with the grade of the seriousness of the genital disturbance. The prospect of cure depends directly upon the possibility of establishing the ability of genital satisfaction. (p.100,) Likewise his continuation on this: The genital disturbance is not, as earlier assumed, one symptom among many others, it is the symptom of the neurosis itself. (p.100)
There are several reasons why I can’t accept this. The one is empiric, what we can also call clinical experience. Here I lean towards Schelderup (1988) who to a large degree expresses the experience I have myself and also those of Lindèn. Schelderup says: ” I have more and more come to the conclusion that the theory about the sexual causation of the neurosis solely or at least principally, is in reality due to a misunderstanding of the presenting facts.” (p.92.) He continues “…. a conflict of non-sexual character has created seclusion and thereby a general hampering of the active and self-assertion tendencies.” (p.96).
It becomes meaningfully related to my clinical practice when he says: “….The child has been given too strong a task of adjustment or exposed to heavy stress or a traumatic situation, to which he has been powerless, and unable to work through.” (p.97) Further: “….The child has staked all his forces, all his emotional life on something, then encounters an overpowering resistance and suffers defeat. All roads to usual outlets of emotions are closed. The child is completely powerless and becomes overwhelmed by his impressions. Such an overwhelming of impressions towards which one is powerless creates anxiety. The child will then also later react with anxiety and quite instinctively try to avoid things which in any way might lead to a similar helpless situation. But as a consequence of this, he will be more or less paralyzed in his ability to once more enter into anything wholeheartedly. Many impulses and emotions are automatically restrained and cut off. (p. 97,).
The importance of this to which Schelderup calls attention is that traumatic experiences of non-sexual character can also interfere and disturb/limit the organisms total development of life. This lacking capability of life development will, of course, interfere with the individuals ability of full sexual devotion, and disturb or twist this.
The other thing is the structural level. By structural I mean the organism’s structure biologically as well as intra psychically during the very first years of life. I lean towards Trevarten (87) and Stern (85).
If it is so, as modern infant research seems to show, that the child already from birth experiences as well as seeks out states of pleasure, as for instance mutual communicating creates in the child, as emotional synchronization also seems to generate pleasure, and last but not least, that this experience is associated with bodily activity, stimulation, and excitation and experienced as pleasurable by the child. If all pleasure in its starting point is bodily, then it must be the child’s experience of the body as a category of acknowledgment, which is placed under pressure by frustrations of the natural extroverted seeking and exploring activities of the child.
It is the body’s actual acting that is attacked, and it can therefore not be difficult to imagine that full devotion to the body may be re-established as a secondary effect when a primary contradiction is solved.
The pelvis reflex can be looked upon as such a primary capacity in the body that was present originally, and that it re-appears as an indicator that the patient again is able to
experience pleasure as a bodily totality. Sexuality then becomes a possible potential of knowledge for man, on the same footing as other bodily, thought and emotional states.
The movement of the pelvis tells something about establishing the ability of using, having access to, a broader specter of acknowledgment potentials. https://vegetativetraining.wordpress.com/science-foundation-self-regulated-and-experience-oriented-vegetotherapy/
Fascism as a cultural negation to a biological contradiction – upright standing
The collapse of feeling (through autonomic strain) produces a search for reconnection.
Christianity, in particular, preserves the vertical longing—the cry “upward,” the hope, the condition of transcendence through endless suffering. The longing for salvation can be seen as a desire for relief from the chronic stress and strain on the autonomic nervous system.
This idea challenges traditional views of spirituality and philosophy and highlights the intricate relationships between body, mind, and culture (the feeling). It encourages us to consider the potential somatic roots of cultural and theological expressions, and how our bodily – emotional experiences shape our understanding of the world and our place within it.
https://ingejarlclausen.substack.com/p/religion-as-a-cry-from-the-vertical
Fascism can be seen as the organised destruction of self-regulation, the feeling. Destroying our ability to say stop, say no when it's enough.
https://vegetativetraining.wordpress.com/saying-no-saying-stop-the-self-regulation-of-the-organism/
Thank you Dr Crist for this timely article. As a longtime student of Orgonomy, I was able to follow much of what you've written here.
This is a personal response:
When I was first exposed to Reich, his teachings were difficult for me to grasp. Now, living in America today,
I have an experiential template upon which to map Reich's teachings regarding fascism. This excites me. I have been searching for a way to more deeply understand what is happening in my country today.
Your excellent review has opened a path forward for me.
🙏🏻 Susan