A naked source of power

This review of the work of Wilhelm Reich by Olivia Laing caught my eye over the weekend.

Reich was a student of Freud who went rogue and took two heretical turns. Firstly, he started working on his patients’ bodies as a way of working on their minds. By touching areas of physical tension, he brought deeply buried feelings to the surface, often helping people remember – and process – prior experiences of shame or trauma. Secondly, he moved on from the Freudian belief that problems presented by patients were an internal consequence of childhood experience, and began to consider the influence of external social (systemic) factors like poverty, unemployment and violence.

It’s a fascinating development of psychoanalytic theory which I think may have interesting applications in organisational consultancy. But I’m also drawn to the radical nature of Reich’s work. Anyone whose books have been burned by both the Nazis in pre-war Germany and the federal government in 1950s America has got to be worth a read, surely!

I’ll dig a little deeper into his work – perhaps starting with People in Trouble – and also into Laing’s new book, Everybody.