Wilhelm Reich

Wilhelm Reich (March 24, 1897–November 3, 1957) was an Austrian-American psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and author, who was trained in Vienna by Sigmund Freud.

Early life and career

Wilhelm Reich was born in Dobrzanica, a village near Lemberg, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now in the Ukraine. His parents, Leon Reich, a prosperous farmer, and Cecilia Roniger, were Jewish. Shortly after his birth, the family moved south to a farm in Jujinetz, near Chernivtsi, Bukovina. He attributed his later interest in the study of sex and the biological basis of the emotions to his upbringing on his father's farm where, as he later put it, the "natural life functions" were never hidden from him. He was taught at home until he was 13 when his mother committed suicide after being discovered having an affair with Reich's tutor. http://www.wilhelmreichmuseum.org/biography.html

Related Topics:
Lemberg - Austro-Hungarian Empire - Ukraine - Jewish - Chernivtsi - Bukovina

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Reich had to flee his home shortly after his father's death in 1914, when the Russian army invaded. In his Passion of Youth, he wrote: "I never saw either my homeland or my possessions again. Of a well-to-do past, nothing was left."

Related Topics:
1914 - Russian

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He joined the Austrian Army, serving from 1915-18, for the last two years as a lieutenant. In 1918, when the war ended, he entered the medical school at the University of Vienna. As an undergraduate, he was drawn to the work of Sigmund Freud, who became aware of Reich's work in 1919 when Reich organized a seminar on sexology. Reich was accepted for membership of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Association in October 1920 at the age of 23. According to the Wilhelm Reich Museum's biography, he was allowed to complete his six-year medical degree in four years because he was a war veteran, and received his M.D. in July 1922. http://www.wilhelmreichmuseum.org/biography.html He worked in Internal Medicine at University Hospital, Vienna, and studied neuropsychiatry from 1922-24 at the Neurological and Psychiatric Clinic under Professor Wagner-Jauregg, who won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1927.

Related Topics:
Lieutenant - 1918 - University of Vienna - Sigmund Freud - 1919 - Sexology - 1920 - M.D. - 1922 - Wagner-Jauregg - Nobel Prize - 1927

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