The Science of Vertigo
Evasion and hatred of the living principle are the two outstanding characteristics of human behavior – Wilhelm Reich
One of the consequences of Matrophobia is sexual dysfunction. Conflict with the terrible mother can often result either in hyper-sexuality or frigidity. The shame and anxiety caused by the these problems further destabilizes the psyche, preventing one from effectively entering society to form deep, meaningful relationships with others.
Matrophobia is undeniably the main cause of frigidity in women, and given that about 80 percent of women are to some degree sexually frigid, the problem is enormous. After all, think of how many children are born to frigid mothers, and how many are unloved and secretly resented for their very existence by cold, indifferent, self-absorbed mothers.
Indeed, a narcissistic terrible mother gratuitously undermines the normal sexual function of a child under her control. Hectoring and shaming a child for bed-wetting, masturbation and asking innocent questions about genitalia often invokes a torrent of puritanical disapproval and even rage. This outrageous reaction by insensitive parents can literally petrify a child's consciousness, a condition that may prevail for a lifetime, bringing on many physical and psychological disabilities.
The parent's silly inhibitions, revulsions and hang-ups cause them to poison a child's relationship with their own bodies. The child is inclined to think there's something wrong with them for being inquisitive, sensual and pleasure-loving. Many children in this oppressive, forbidding climate cease being curious about their bodies and sexuality. They are programmed to think of their physicality as something loathsome, burdensome and lowly. Their natural biophilic inclinations are well and truly extinguished.
What is wrong with us, with our way of rearing our children? – Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich was an expert in the correct process of child-rearing. He invented advanced healing modalities still ignored today by pediatricians, social-workers and so-called "experts" in childcare.
Reich knew all there was to know about the true reasons for sexual hang-ups in children and adults. He also knew how to permanently cure them. Reich accused pediatricians and doctors of being infected with Emotional Plague, a condition affecting anyone who suffered being unloved as a child, and every victim of Adultism.
Age after age, emotional plague is transferred from parent to child. Consequently, adults find it easy, says Reich, to live in a world of lies and cruelty because of their biopsychic toxicity, brought on by deficient parenting. That people think of themselves as sane, modern and evolved is pure fantasy. It’s an illusion generated by those choosing to live in their intellects, rather than their bodies. They make this choice because to face the pain and rage trapped in their bodies generates an overwhelming sense of angst.
It’s a case of Existential Vertigo, which manifests in many forms. Sexual hang-ups are a particularly common derivative manifestation of this more critical syndrome. Reich taught that sexual dysfunction pertains to more than just genitalia. Many sexual troubles indicate deeper problems originating during the Oedipal Period and earlier stages of development, symptomatic of deficiencies in the mother-child relationship. They are, in short, symptoms of the Dragon Fight.
One of the consequences of Matrophobia is sexual dysfunction. Conflict with the terrible mother can often result either in hyper-sexuality or frigidity. The shame and anxiety caused by the these problems further destabilizes the psyche, preventing one from effectively entering society to form deep, meaningful relationships with others.
Matrophobia is undeniably the main cause of frigidity in women, and given that about 80 percent of women are to some degree sexually frigid, the problem is enormous. After all, think of how many children are born to frigid mothers, and how many are unloved and secretly resented for their very existence by cold, indifferent, self-absorbed mothers.
Indeed, a narcissistic terrible mother gratuitously undermines the normal sexual function of a child under her control. Hectoring and shaming a child for bed-wetting, masturbation and asking innocent questions about genitalia often invokes a torrent of puritanical disapproval and even rage. This outrageous reaction by insensitive parents can literally petrify a child's consciousness, a condition that may prevail for a lifetime, bringing on many physical and psychological disabilities.
The parent's silly inhibitions, revulsions and hang-ups cause them to poison a child's relationship with their own bodies. The child is inclined to think there's something wrong with them for being inquisitive, sensual and pleasure-loving. Many children in this oppressive, forbidding climate cease being curious about their bodies and sexuality. They are programmed to think of their physicality as something loathsome, burdensome and lowly. Their natural biophilic inclinations are well and truly extinguished.
What is wrong with us, with our way of rearing our children? – Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich was an expert in the correct process of child-rearing. He invented advanced healing modalities still ignored today by pediatricians, social-workers and so-called "experts" in childcare.
Reich knew all there was to know about the true reasons for sexual hang-ups in children and adults. He also knew how to permanently cure them. Reich accused pediatricians and doctors of being infected with Emotional Plague, a condition affecting anyone who suffered being unloved as a child, and every victim of Adultism.
Age after age, emotional plague is transferred from parent to child. Consequently, adults find it easy, says Reich, to live in a world of lies and cruelty because of their biopsychic toxicity, brought on by deficient parenting. That people think of themselves as sane, modern and evolved is pure fantasy. It’s an illusion generated by those choosing to live in their intellects, rather than their bodies. They make this choice because to face the pain and rage trapped in their bodies generates an overwhelming sense of angst.
It’s a case of Existential Vertigo, which manifests in many forms. Sexual hang-ups are a particularly common derivative manifestation of this more critical syndrome. Reich taught that sexual dysfunction pertains to more than just genitalia. Many sexual troubles indicate deeper problems originating during the Oedipal Period and earlier stages of development, symptomatic of deficiencies in the mother-child relationship. They are, in short, symptoms of the Dragon Fight.
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Interestingly, psychic disorientation and existential vertigo, as I call it, play a part in several insightful movies, the most brilliant of which is Vertigo, by Alfred Hitchcock.
Vertigo (1958), by Alfred Hitchcock is a color Film Noir, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak. It is a suspenseful exploration of psychological syndromes and complexes. The main protagonist's intense fear of falling represents a deeper anxiety about sexual potency and social relevance. When normal role-play breaks down it can be because one has experienced a life-threatening incident or unnerving rite of passage. It can also occur because content from the past, from infancy, rises to the surface to be correctly faced and processed. The raising of suppressed content causes bouts of anxiety during which the ego feels as if it is cut adrift. Normal domestic and social roles no longer serve to anchor the ego, and ordinary everyday problems and challenges loom as if they are insurmountable and potentially lethal.
The movie has many plot twists which needn't concern us here. Basically, it tells the story of an ex-cop, John "Scottie" Ferguson, forced to take early retirement due to a severe psychosomatic aliment besetting him after he nearly fell from a roof during the pursuit of a criminal. Throughout the film no clear reason is provided for Scottie’s acrophobia. We only presume it has to do with his fear of death by falling. That the condition is due instead to sexual anxiety is, however, evidently the subtheme throughout the drama.
We conclude that the disabling terror experienced by Scottie awakened a deeper anxiety about his lack of existential corporeity. This "mortification" syndrome exists within a great many people, and is detectable in children who feel rejected and shamed ("petrified") by irrationally severe parents. It affects those who have been punished or reprimanded for expressing perfectly natural instincts, interests and thoughts.
…the average parent, educator, or physician carries the heavy burden of this century’s wrong kind of education, which has perpetuated utter ignorance of childhood – Wilhelm Reich
So bad is Scottie’s acrophobia, that he’s forced to walk about with an old man’s cane for support. This is a clear metaphor for sexual impotency and its underlying causes. It suggests that Scottie's faculty of proprioception (body-awareness) has been radically disturbed.
To highlight the subtheme, Hitchcock has a seductively attractive blonde female enter Scottie’s life. Their meeting is one of the uncanny elements in the complex drama.
We realize early on that although Scottie has a girlfriend of sorts, he isn’t actually married. His girlfriend, Midge, isn’t particularly attractive as a female. She’s certainly nothing to compare to the highly attractive Madeleine who captures Scottie's attention and sexual ardor. In her presence he feels alive, chivalric, attractive and potent. His deadened self-feeling is somewhat reawakened, if only by way of a perfect stranger.
Scottie’s first intimate moment with Madeleine occurs after he heroically saves her from drowning herself in San Francisco Bay. Semi-crippled as he is by sexual anxiety, he musters what's left of his manly courage and bravely dives into the ocean to save her. This is a classic chivalric act, revealing that the "ex-cop" (ex-male) hasn’t entirely lost his manhood. Maybe he's just temporarily slipped back into his old role, or maybe he's on his way to recovery by meeting her. Maybe his infirmity has been washed away by the cleansing water.
We conclude that the disabling terror experienced by Scottie awakened a deeper anxiety about his lack of existential corporeity. This "mortification" syndrome exists within a great many people, and is detectable in children who feel rejected and shamed ("petrified") by irrationally severe parents. It affects those who have been punished or reprimanded for expressing perfectly natural instincts, interests and thoughts.
…the average parent, educator, or physician carries the heavy burden of this century’s wrong kind of education, which has perpetuated utter ignorance of childhood – Wilhelm Reich
So bad is Scottie’s acrophobia, that he’s forced to walk about with an old man’s cane for support. This is a clear metaphor for sexual impotency and its underlying causes. It suggests that Scottie's faculty of proprioception (body-awareness) has been radically disturbed.
To highlight the subtheme, Hitchcock has a seductively attractive blonde female enter Scottie’s life. Their meeting is one of the uncanny elements in the complex drama.
We realize early on that although Scottie has a girlfriend of sorts, he isn’t actually married. His girlfriend, Midge, isn’t particularly attractive as a female. She’s certainly nothing to compare to the highly attractive Madeleine who captures Scottie's attention and sexual ardor. In her presence he feels alive, chivalric, attractive and potent. His deadened self-feeling is somewhat reawakened, if only by way of a perfect stranger.
Scottie’s first intimate moment with Madeleine occurs after he heroically saves her from drowning herself in San Francisco Bay. Semi-crippled as he is by sexual anxiety, he musters what's left of his manly courage and bravely dives into the ocean to save her. This is a classic chivalric act, revealing that the "ex-cop" (ex-male) hasn’t entirely lost his manhood. Maybe he's just temporarily slipped back into his old role, or maybe he's on his way to recovery by meeting her. Maybe his infirmity has been washed away by the cleansing water.
The damsel in distress is saved by the chivalric man. Of course, in this case there's no actual monster. Madeleine is saved from herself. Although the event is uncanny, it works as a symbol of baptism and regeneration. Perhaps both characters are to some extent being ritually reborn.
Actually, before his personal encounter with Madeleine, Scottie has been following her everywhere she goes. He’s been hired by her worried husband who fears she’s losing her mind. At times she appears to take on another identity, that of a long dead woman named Carlotta who lived decades earlier in the same area. In a last desperate act, Madeleine’s husband hires the retired detective to keep a close eye on his wife and report on her strange meanderings throughout the city. Scottie reluctantly agrees to take the case, and dutifully shadows Madeleine as she dreamily goes about from one place to another in San Francisco and its picturesque surrounds.
The theme at this point, common to Hitchcock films - and others focusing on the weird and uncanny - is voyeurism. As said earlier, it’s common for “impotent” people riddled with anxiety and self-loathing to compensate for their inaction by passively “staring” at others. Such behavior is common in those taking refuge in the intellect and frontal lobes, in an attempt to suppress somatic intelligence and natural bodily needs. By hyper-focusing on the external world, and appearance and activities of other people, one casts their own being and existence into the shade. They need never deal with their lack of concern for themselves as Selves. This is because other people do not reflect the Self but the ego or social persona. Chronic entanglement in domestic and social affairs is, therefore, the method universally adopted by anxiety-ridden autophobes who would rather die than feel.
If and when circumstances shake the foundations of the counterfeit social persona, one becomes profoundly disoriented. They suffer bouts of existential vertigo, which can lead to a conscious phobia of physically losing one's balance and falling over. Consequently, one avoids heights and situations in which they do not feel safe and grounded.
In certain cases the vertigo can be mental, leading one to avoid intellectual challenges. One can be afraid of passion, romance and social interaction, which may destabilize one's fragile (or infantile) ego. If such a type does enter a relationship, it may be to lessen feeling rather than enhance it, with the other person often serving as a stabilizing force and way to avoid facing one's true biopsychic needs. It's a case of needing you because I don't want myself. This is certainly how it is with Scottie.
The theme at this point, common to Hitchcock films - and others focusing on the weird and uncanny - is voyeurism. As said earlier, it’s common for “impotent” people riddled with anxiety and self-loathing to compensate for their inaction by passively “staring” at others. Such behavior is common in those taking refuge in the intellect and frontal lobes, in an attempt to suppress somatic intelligence and natural bodily needs. By hyper-focusing on the external world, and appearance and activities of other people, one casts their own being and existence into the shade. They need never deal with their lack of concern for themselves as Selves. This is because other people do not reflect the Self but the ego or social persona. Chronic entanglement in domestic and social affairs is, therefore, the method universally adopted by anxiety-ridden autophobes who would rather die than feel.
If and when circumstances shake the foundations of the counterfeit social persona, one becomes profoundly disoriented. They suffer bouts of existential vertigo, which can lead to a conscious phobia of physically losing one's balance and falling over. Consequently, one avoids heights and situations in which they do not feel safe and grounded.
In certain cases the vertigo can be mental, leading one to avoid intellectual challenges. One can be afraid of passion, romance and social interaction, which may destabilize one's fragile (or infantile) ego. If such a type does enter a relationship, it may be to lessen feeling rather than enhance it, with the other person often serving as a stabilizing force and way to avoid facing one's true biopsychic needs. It's a case of needing you because I don't want myself. This is certainly how it is with Scottie.
Is the act of "falling in love" the result of losing oneself in the other in order to avoid dealing with oneself as a Self? Is it to avoid dealing with inner wounds and insecurities? According to Reich, most people's chief phobia is their own natural need for love and Self-expression. He stated ...I knew very well that there is seldom a human structure brought up under the stress of emotional frustration in early infancy which does not contain a layer of bitter hatred against life.
Sadly, Scottie has no idea that his impaired sexuality (manifesting as vertigo) is actually helping him reach out for fulfillment. It's no different for a child, teen or adult. In the Reichean sense, sexual dysfunction is merely the result of the body's unheard cry for pleasure. If pleasure is not forthcoming for some reason, one is convinced they have a "sexual problem." Fortunately Reich was not fooled by the fantasies of the self-deceived.
After rescuing Madeleine, Scottie takes her to his apartment and lays her naked in his bed. In following scenes both characters semi-humorously describe themselves as “wanderers” and hesitatingly agree to meet again to accompany one another on lazy sightseeing excursions. Their dialogue emphasizes that they are both "outsiders" of a kind, although not in a healthy way. They are obviously consummate voyeurs; outsiders looking in.
Hitchcock's superb camera-work during the apartment scene highlights the major theme of voyeurism.
We suspect that both characters suffer from psychological complexes possibly compromising their sanity. Somehow, both have fallen off the normative tracks of life, and out of the daily routine. We have an idea why Scottie’s normal life is derailed, but are left to guess as to Madeleine’s problem. Surely, given her extraordinary looks, it couldn’t possibly be sexual in nature, right? In any case, both characters have an identity crisis. That much is clear. As the film progresses we find out that Carlotta Valdez, the woman who apparently haunts Madeleine’s imagination, committed suicide. Was Madeleine's suicide attempt due to possession? Or is there some other reason behind it?
In their first scenes together, it’s not clear that they are attracted to one another. Or at least it does not appear that Madeleine is particularly attracted to Scottie, especially when he probes her about her private life and habits. After a few sips of coffee she prepares to get up and go. During their slightly awkward fireside conversation, however, she never asks about why he undressed her. It's usually a liberty taken by women not men. But of course we know that, from the time of his frightening accident, Scottie has been well and truly "feminized." It's also permitted of a lover, and maybe that's what Scottie needs to recast himself as.
After their meeting, it appears that, to all intents and purposes, the pair become each other’s psychoanalyst. This is particularly the case with Scottie’s relationship with Madeleine. Her life seems to have dark corners to explore. She’s the one with the indefinable lapses, phobias, anxieties and queer hang-ups, although, as said, we do not automatically get the feeling that they are specifically sexual. When Scottie tries to embrace her on the treacherous cliffs, his attraction to her as a women and object of sexual desire is confirmed. He's found his dream-lover at last. And that is exactly what Madeleine is.
During this scene, she apparently reciprocates his affection, but suddenly recounts an uncanny dream she’s had about a tower near the ocean where something dramatic occurred to her. After Scottie locates the place she dreamed about and fears, they drive together to Monterey to visit the tower, After ascending the winding stair to the top, Madeleine apparently falls from a high window, plunging to her death. Thinking she's committed suicide after all, Scottie is emotionally devastated. He becomes severely depressed and catatonic, his condition now far worse than a case of vertigo. The uncanny has now become the horrific.
Madeleines' fall from the tower precipitates Scottie's own fall into the nether. He finally turns from the world of light, but having absolutely nothing true or pure within, he's a lost soul wandering in darkness. This time there's no humor involved. His condition is so bad that he's removed to an asylum where he remains for a year or so. The loss of Madeleine strips his life of whatever meaning was left in it after his previous mortifying accident. This is, as it were, his second experience of "falling" or existential vertigo.
After rescuing Madeleine, Scottie takes her to his apartment and lays her naked in his bed. In following scenes both characters semi-humorously describe themselves as “wanderers” and hesitatingly agree to meet again to accompany one another on lazy sightseeing excursions. Their dialogue emphasizes that they are both "outsiders" of a kind, although not in a healthy way. They are obviously consummate voyeurs; outsiders looking in.
Hitchcock's superb camera-work during the apartment scene highlights the major theme of voyeurism.
We suspect that both characters suffer from psychological complexes possibly compromising their sanity. Somehow, both have fallen off the normative tracks of life, and out of the daily routine. We have an idea why Scottie’s normal life is derailed, but are left to guess as to Madeleine’s problem. Surely, given her extraordinary looks, it couldn’t possibly be sexual in nature, right? In any case, both characters have an identity crisis. That much is clear. As the film progresses we find out that Carlotta Valdez, the woman who apparently haunts Madeleine’s imagination, committed suicide. Was Madeleine's suicide attempt due to possession? Or is there some other reason behind it?
In their first scenes together, it’s not clear that they are attracted to one another. Or at least it does not appear that Madeleine is particularly attracted to Scottie, especially when he probes her about her private life and habits. After a few sips of coffee she prepares to get up and go. During their slightly awkward fireside conversation, however, she never asks about why he undressed her. It's usually a liberty taken by women not men. But of course we know that, from the time of his frightening accident, Scottie has been well and truly "feminized." It's also permitted of a lover, and maybe that's what Scottie needs to recast himself as.
After their meeting, it appears that, to all intents and purposes, the pair become each other’s psychoanalyst. This is particularly the case with Scottie’s relationship with Madeleine. Her life seems to have dark corners to explore. She’s the one with the indefinable lapses, phobias, anxieties and queer hang-ups, although, as said, we do not automatically get the feeling that they are specifically sexual. When Scottie tries to embrace her on the treacherous cliffs, his attraction to her as a women and object of sexual desire is confirmed. He's found his dream-lover at last. And that is exactly what Madeleine is.
During this scene, she apparently reciprocates his affection, but suddenly recounts an uncanny dream she’s had about a tower near the ocean where something dramatic occurred to her. After Scottie locates the place she dreamed about and fears, they drive together to Monterey to visit the tower, After ascending the winding stair to the top, Madeleine apparently falls from a high window, plunging to her death. Thinking she's committed suicide after all, Scottie is emotionally devastated. He becomes severely depressed and catatonic, his condition now far worse than a case of vertigo. The uncanny has now become the horrific.
Madeleines' fall from the tower precipitates Scottie's own fall into the nether. He finally turns from the world of light, but having absolutely nothing true or pure within, he's a lost soul wandering in darkness. This time there's no humor involved. His condition is so bad that he's removed to an asylum where he remains for a year or so. The loss of Madeleine strips his life of whatever meaning was left in it after his previous mortifying accident. This is, as it were, his second experience of "falling" or existential vertigo.
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Wilhelm Reich went to great lengths to correctly explain the underlying reasons for peculiar maladies such as vertigo. However, unlike Freud and other therapists of his school, Reich understood that the condition was not simply due to sexual hang-ups of the familiar tawdry kind. Instead, he traced sexual dysfunction to the effects and after-effects of deficient child-rearing and onset of armoring.
He discovered that a fear of falling is present in very young infants if and when they are rejected and improperly nurtured by their mothers. Of course, in the preverbal period it takes a trained expert to detect the cues sent out by infants signaling their discomfort, distress and panic. Very few parents, said Reich, know how to read the body-language and facial expressions of infants, especially when they are irritated and uncomfortable. The problem is exacerbated if parents are indifferent to their child's emotional and physical needs. Reich's Orgone Institute in Maine was established in 1948, so new parents could find instruction in cutting-edge child-rearing techniques.
He discovered that a fear of falling is present in very young infants if and when they are rejected and improperly nurtured by their mothers. Of course, in the preverbal period it takes a trained expert to detect the cues sent out by infants signaling their discomfort, distress and panic. Very few parents, said Reich, know how to read the body-language and facial expressions of infants, especially when they are irritated and uncomfortable. The problem is exacerbated if parents are indifferent to their child's emotional and physical needs. Reich's Orgone Institute in Maine was established in 1948, so new parents could find instruction in cutting-edge child-rearing techniques.
Reich was strongly against the manner in which society treats the newborn. He objected to invasive prepartum medication, injections, inverting, slapping, the removal of infants from their mother's side immediately after birth and circumcision. It all constitutes abuse, and reveals humanity's disguised antipathy to life, innocence and freedom. The intention of a malignant society and of deviant parents is to crush the will and identity of the child from day one. The proof exists in the clear light of day, everywhere we look.
The natural bioenergetic principle in the newborn baby is systematically smothered and ruined by the armored parent and educator, who in turn are supported in their ignorance by powerful social institutions which thrive on the armoring of the human animal – Wilhelm Reich
Throughout his life, Reich traced neuroses and psychosis to the mishandling of children by neurotic, inept or deliberately abusive parents. He had too many perceptive and devastating critiques to list here, but among them Reich stresses that a parent’s own unwholesome biopsychic condition determines the complexion of parent-child interplay.
If a parent is themselves “armored” - and disinterested in feeling - it is highly likely that their interaction with a child will be insensitive and dysfunctional. Reich taught open-minded pupils and parents to detect signs of armoring in children from the earliest periods. Dealing with child biopathy early on prevents the onset of future dysfunction. It reduces the likelihood of pathological tendencies and allows a child to grow to adulthood without compulsively and neurotically expressing anger, rage, frustration, hostility and aggression, etc.
The unarmored child is not given to persistent bouts of depression, apathy, anxiety, animosity, rage, violence and criminality. He's neither suicidal or homicidal. He does not recoil from the Reality Principle but instead he embraces it. Rather than avoiding life's challenges, he tends to act positively, morally and heroically. He is empathic and sensitive not only toward other people but also towards himself.
Throughout his life, Reich traced neuroses and psychosis to the mishandling of children by neurotic, inept or deliberately abusive parents. He had too many perceptive and devastating critiques to list here, but among them Reich stresses that a parent’s own unwholesome biopsychic condition determines the complexion of parent-child interplay.
If a parent is themselves “armored” - and disinterested in feeling - it is highly likely that their interaction with a child will be insensitive and dysfunctional. Reich taught open-minded pupils and parents to detect signs of armoring in children from the earliest periods. Dealing with child biopathy early on prevents the onset of future dysfunction. It reduces the likelihood of pathological tendencies and allows a child to grow to adulthood without compulsively and neurotically expressing anger, rage, frustration, hostility and aggression, etc.
The unarmored child is not given to persistent bouts of depression, apathy, anxiety, animosity, rage, violence and criminality. He's neither suicidal or homicidal. He does not recoil from the Reality Principle but instead he embraces it. Rather than avoiding life's challenges, he tends to act positively, morally and heroically. He is empathic and sensitive not only toward other people but also towards himself.
Wilhelm Reich, the inventor of Orgontic Therapy. He identified Emotional Plague and chronic armoring as the causes of all forms of pathology, developing radical modalities for the removal of both conditions. His healing techniques were so successful that the whole weight of mainstream medicine, and their propaganda machine, came down upon him. He knew why? (Here for more...)
The natural bioenergetic principle in the newborn baby is systematically smothered and ruined by the armored parent and educator, who in turn are supported in their ignorance by powerful social institutions which thrive on the armoring of the human animal – Wilhelm Reich
The armored type is out of touch with their body’s natural needs. Foremost among these somatic needs is pleasure. Reich stated that people not only do not experience true somatic pleasure, but that from an early age they actually detest it. They also subconsciously detest themselves for needing pleasure. This masochistic tendency in turn leads to the development of many other pernicious psychological syndromes, and is the primary cause of physical infirmity and disease. From a biopathic point of view, disease occurs due to our subconscious masochistic tendency to "beat ourselves up." It's often an expression of autophobia or self-hate.
According to Reich, this systemic antipathy to life, pleasure and freedom is detectable in one’s body posture, structure and musculature. It is detected by carefully observing and analyzing one’s attitude, outlook and behavior. Reich's chief interest and endeavor was to secure concrete evidence for his bioenergetic theories by way of a patient's physical structure. He was the least theoretical psychologist who ever lived, and his entire system stands solidly upon hard empirical evidence.
Sadly, Reich's practical, empirically-valid system of healing was universally rejected and ridiculed. Reich knew the reasons for this resistance. He loudly accused detractors of avoiding the evidence placed before them. He accused the medical profession of placing people with emotional plague in charge of the world’s physical and psychological problems. There is no way, he said, for deeply toxic people in white coats to heal anyone. All Big Pharma succeeds in achieving is the institutionalization of pathology and medicalization of everyday life. As one physician put it, it brings about the "pathologization of normal conditions" such as sorrow and loss, etc.
Actually, as Reich brilliantly shows, the underlying causes of pathology are of no concern to the white coats. Their psychiatric practices and techniques are farcical and counterproductive, and their pharmaceutical treatments purely topical and exploitatory.
Reich showed that because of armoring and emotional plague, we breed deeply disturbed offspring, doomed to be assaulted by all sorts of syndromes and complexes from infancy to puberty and beyond.
Sexual disturbance, and the cocktail of other physical and psychological complaints, are traceable to Adultism and Matrophobia. Reich’s work proves it beyond doubt. For this reason, his superlative discoveries and practices have been ridiculed, misinterpreted and buried. His name has been universally reviled by those infected with the very diseases of mind and body he worked so diligently to identify and cure.
Reich’s investigations into human pathology reveal that the world is chock full of pleasure-hating people. Although on the surface people appear addicted to distraction and titillation, on a psychosomatic level the situation is very different.
Modern man is in fact a disciple of unpleasure. Denying himself the wholesome biophilous pleasure he deeply desires, he temporarily pacifies himself with fleeing sensations. Dissatisfied with these, he soon finds himself on a treadmill, hunting high and low for new titillations and distractions. Wearing himself out, he resists addressing the true causes of his psychosomatic distress and hunger. He never realizes that his aches and ravenous appetites are due to having been mistreated by parents who refused to respond sensitively to his spontaneous natural need for touch, love and care.
This is the reason for our sensation-addicted world in which one seeks their “orgasm” through acute caffeination, gambling, sports, politics, perversion, addiction and criminality. One seeks the lost "high" in crowd participation, drugs and sexual excess. If men no longer satisfy me sexually, I’ll try members of my own sex, says the average woman. So it goes with the average armored male. Like Scottie, I can trade in my walking stick for a blonde any day. As long as she prevents me falling over, it's good to go.
The armored type is out of touch with their body’s natural needs. Foremost among these somatic needs is pleasure. Reich stated that people not only do not experience true somatic pleasure, but that from an early age they actually detest it. They also subconsciously detest themselves for needing pleasure. This masochistic tendency in turn leads to the development of many other pernicious psychological syndromes, and is the primary cause of physical infirmity and disease. From a biopathic point of view, disease occurs due to our subconscious masochistic tendency to "beat ourselves up." It's often an expression of autophobia or self-hate.
According to Reich, this systemic antipathy to life, pleasure and freedom is detectable in one’s body posture, structure and musculature. It is detected by carefully observing and analyzing one’s attitude, outlook and behavior. Reich's chief interest and endeavor was to secure concrete evidence for his bioenergetic theories by way of a patient's physical structure. He was the least theoretical psychologist who ever lived, and his entire system stands solidly upon hard empirical evidence.
Sadly, Reich's practical, empirically-valid system of healing was universally rejected and ridiculed. Reich knew the reasons for this resistance. He loudly accused detractors of avoiding the evidence placed before them. He accused the medical profession of placing people with emotional plague in charge of the world’s physical and psychological problems. There is no way, he said, for deeply toxic people in white coats to heal anyone. All Big Pharma succeeds in achieving is the institutionalization of pathology and medicalization of everyday life. As one physician put it, it brings about the "pathologization of normal conditions" such as sorrow and loss, etc.
Actually, as Reich brilliantly shows, the underlying causes of pathology are of no concern to the white coats. Their psychiatric practices and techniques are farcical and counterproductive, and their pharmaceutical treatments purely topical and exploitatory.
Reich showed that because of armoring and emotional plague, we breed deeply disturbed offspring, doomed to be assaulted by all sorts of syndromes and complexes from infancy to puberty and beyond.
Sexual disturbance, and the cocktail of other physical and psychological complaints, are traceable to Adultism and Matrophobia. Reich’s work proves it beyond doubt. For this reason, his superlative discoveries and practices have been ridiculed, misinterpreted and buried. His name has been universally reviled by those infected with the very diseases of mind and body he worked so diligently to identify and cure.
Reich’s investigations into human pathology reveal that the world is chock full of pleasure-hating people. Although on the surface people appear addicted to distraction and titillation, on a psychosomatic level the situation is very different.
Modern man is in fact a disciple of unpleasure. Denying himself the wholesome biophilous pleasure he deeply desires, he temporarily pacifies himself with fleeing sensations. Dissatisfied with these, he soon finds himself on a treadmill, hunting high and low for new titillations and distractions. Wearing himself out, he resists addressing the true causes of his psychosomatic distress and hunger. He never realizes that his aches and ravenous appetites are due to having been mistreated by parents who refused to respond sensitively to his spontaneous natural need for touch, love and care.
This is the reason for our sensation-addicted world in which one seeks their “orgasm” through acute caffeination, gambling, sports, politics, perversion, addiction and criminality. One seeks the lost "high" in crowd participation, drugs and sexual excess. If men no longer satisfy me sexually, I’ll try members of my own sex, says the average woman. So it goes with the average armored male. Like Scottie, I can trade in my walking stick for a blonde any day. As long as she prevents me falling over, it's good to go.
The armored person soon decides to reduce feeling all the more. Alienated from his body’s true needs, he shuts down his erogenous zones and makes his body into a fleshy prison impervious to organic flow. The flow of bioenergy, from core to surface and back again, slows drastically as the musculature contracts and becomes more and more spasticated and deadened. As psychologist R. D. Laing said, we erect fifty foot concrete walls between us and the real Self within.
In my work, I refer to the removal of armoring as Shadow Work, fusing Reich’s approach with elements of Jung’s. Loosely, we can think of the body’s intelligence as being cast into shadow. Other than Wilhelm Reich, few therapists dealt with the awakening of somatic intelligence. Those who have focused on this project include Alexander Lowen, Arthur Janov, Ida Rolf, Moshe Feldenkrais and Frederick Alexander. Reich's theories on child-rearing were endorsed by Melanie Klein and Alice Miller.
Tragically, the practices of these few mavericks are presently being appropriated and utilized by numerous practitioners and schools repeatedly failing to honor these forebears. This scavenger research and practique is all too common today. Manuals and handbooks now appear in plenty, offered by prominent institutes of healing (mostly founded and staffed by women), containing no mention of Reich and other pioneers in the field of homeopathy and bioenergy.
Shadow Work also denotes the practical de-armoring process which ultimately cannot be institutionalized. Although one can certainly benefit by studying the eminent therapists mentioned here, Shadow Work is for the most part an individual process. It is the means by which one is finally able to remove the psychosomatic blocks preventing access to the deep cache of bioenergy within. Without being able to summon this life-force, it's not possible for a person to successfully overcome the many obstacles and challenges encountered in life. One will find it impossible to discover and commit to their vocation and live heroically.
On the social level the armored person is bound to either be a docile body relying on external authorities for stability and direction, or hyper-extrovert dependent on temporary jolts of energy from the ebb and flow of the Crowd.
Reich taught that below conscious systems flows the energy animating all life throughout the universe. This libido, prana, chi or life-force lies stagnant within us and cannot be utilized by armored types. Given that it is essential for healthy masculinity in men and women, and that without it sustained effort is impossible, we see that the removal of armoring is, as Reich insisted, a vital process. Had his healing modalities been positively and respectfully greeted by society, and widely practiced, our world would be in a far healthier and saner condition than it is.
Prevention of armoring would not appear necessary if our children could grow up as nature or “God” has prescribed – Wilhelm Reich
In my work, I refer to the removal of armoring as Shadow Work, fusing Reich’s approach with elements of Jung’s. Loosely, we can think of the body’s intelligence as being cast into shadow. Other than Wilhelm Reich, few therapists dealt with the awakening of somatic intelligence. Those who have focused on this project include Alexander Lowen, Arthur Janov, Ida Rolf, Moshe Feldenkrais and Frederick Alexander. Reich's theories on child-rearing were endorsed by Melanie Klein and Alice Miller.
Tragically, the practices of these few mavericks are presently being appropriated and utilized by numerous practitioners and schools repeatedly failing to honor these forebears. This scavenger research and practique is all too common today. Manuals and handbooks now appear in plenty, offered by prominent institutes of healing (mostly founded and staffed by women), containing no mention of Reich and other pioneers in the field of homeopathy and bioenergy.
Shadow Work also denotes the practical de-armoring process which ultimately cannot be institutionalized. Although one can certainly benefit by studying the eminent therapists mentioned here, Shadow Work is for the most part an individual process. It is the means by which one is finally able to remove the psychosomatic blocks preventing access to the deep cache of bioenergy within. Without being able to summon this life-force, it's not possible for a person to successfully overcome the many obstacles and challenges encountered in life. One will find it impossible to discover and commit to their vocation and live heroically.
On the social level the armored person is bound to either be a docile body relying on external authorities for stability and direction, or hyper-extrovert dependent on temporary jolts of energy from the ebb and flow of the Crowd.
Reich taught that below conscious systems flows the energy animating all life throughout the universe. This libido, prana, chi or life-force lies stagnant within us and cannot be utilized by armored types. Given that it is essential for healthy masculinity in men and women, and that without it sustained effort is impossible, we see that the removal of armoring is, as Reich insisted, a vital process. Had his healing modalities been positively and respectfully greeted by society, and widely practiced, our world would be in a far healthier and saner condition than it is.
Prevention of armoring would not appear necessary if our children could grow up as nature or “God” has prescribed – Wilhelm Reich
The newborn not only requires being held, they need to feel their mother's skin against their own. They also need to be gently touched, stroked and massaged. Speech impediments such as stuttering, lisps and other tics, habits and issues (nightmares, bed-wetting, teeth-grinding, screaming, clinging, tantrums, restlessness, etc) are inarticulate reactions to the lack of proper nurture and care. Later, during adolescence, behavior such as nail-biting, hands in pockets, sullen expressions, self-isolation, body-piercing, ADHD, defiance and delinquency, etc, can all be traced to insensitive parents who've steeped their children in a domestic culture of unpleasure..
The trouble lies in the thinking and acting of the majority of educators, parents, and physicians. It lies in the maze of wrong opinions which have nothing to do with the child – Wilhelm Reich
According to Reich, vertigo occurs to a person whose underlying biopsychic stability in relation to reality weakens for some reason. And for a great many people that stability isn’t strong to begin with, for reasons already stated. With Matrophobia compromising one’s core identity, one may function in the world only by way of external supports provided by regimented parents and societies. Eventually, due to this or that trauma, or difficult rite of passage, underlying existential vertigo may arise as a call from the Self, overruling the ego and directing one to address and heal their systemic anxiety and distress.
Vertigo (or acrophobia) also arises when there’s a disconnect between erogenous zones in the body, between those which have been stimulated and somewhat satiated and those which have not. It is the result of a lack of communication between pleasure and pain centers within one’s structure. The mother who has, via breastfeeding, provided oral pleasure for her newborn, but who has not sensitively tended to other erogenous zones, sets up the conditions for acrophobia and other peculiar syndromes. All sorts of phobias - such as fear of cats, dogs, mice and insects, etc - can be traced to this biopathy.
We see that it is the ego that has the uncanny sensation of "falling." Misinterpreting the presence and direction of the Imperial Self as a fatal intrusion, the insecure ego desperately reaches out for any available stabilizer. Society provides one support after another, furnishing constitutionally weak souls with the bracing and handrails they need so badly. Lots of pubs, arenas and churches on main street.
Breeding one's own kids and using them as crutches for fifteen years or more is the preferred method and choice for your average smiling-depressive in pathological avoidance of Selfhood.
Families and schools are nothing more than workshops for the production of weaklings and powerless creatures or slaves who have no self-confidence - Wilhelm Reich
The trouble lies in the thinking and acting of the majority of educators, parents, and physicians. It lies in the maze of wrong opinions which have nothing to do with the child – Wilhelm Reich
According to Reich, vertigo occurs to a person whose underlying biopsychic stability in relation to reality weakens for some reason. And for a great many people that stability isn’t strong to begin with, for reasons already stated. With Matrophobia compromising one’s core identity, one may function in the world only by way of external supports provided by regimented parents and societies. Eventually, due to this or that trauma, or difficult rite of passage, underlying existential vertigo may arise as a call from the Self, overruling the ego and directing one to address and heal their systemic anxiety and distress.
Vertigo (or acrophobia) also arises when there’s a disconnect between erogenous zones in the body, between those which have been stimulated and somewhat satiated and those which have not. It is the result of a lack of communication between pleasure and pain centers within one’s structure. The mother who has, via breastfeeding, provided oral pleasure for her newborn, but who has not sensitively tended to other erogenous zones, sets up the conditions for acrophobia and other peculiar syndromes. All sorts of phobias - such as fear of cats, dogs, mice and insects, etc - can be traced to this biopathy.
We see that it is the ego that has the uncanny sensation of "falling." Misinterpreting the presence and direction of the Imperial Self as a fatal intrusion, the insecure ego desperately reaches out for any available stabilizer. Society provides one support after another, furnishing constitutionally weak souls with the bracing and handrails they need so badly. Lots of pubs, arenas and churches on main street.
Breeding one's own kids and using them as crutches for fifteen years or more is the preferred method and choice for your average smiling-depressive in pathological avoidance of Selfhood.
Families and schools are nothing more than workshops for the production of weaklings and powerless creatures or slaves who have no self-confidence - Wilhelm Reich
A terrible mother's constitutional fragility, insecurity and existential vertigo inflicted on her poor children.
But what part does sexuality play? Surely we derive pleasure from it? In many cases yes, it's true. However, given the prohibitions levied by condescending puritanical parents, and their artificial society, it is no wonder that many people end up suffering from sexual insecurity and genital dysfunction.
As said above, sexual dysfunction sounds a call directing one to deal with their armoring and emotional plague. So it is with the vast majority of physical and psychological ailments. However, thanks to the creatures in white coats, people are condemned to live out their whole lives, enduring untold suffering, unaware of this.
When sexual pleasure wanes or becomes ego-threatening, one is bound to regress to previous psychosexual stages. The child whose sensual needs are partially tended or completely ignored is sure to lack somatic-intelligence and grounding. Instead of receiving gentle erotic stimulation, which serves to connect him to his physicality, he comes to think of his body as a source of deficiency, discomfort and pain.
If he regresses to the Oral Stage, his need for pleasure, although displaced, becomes abnormally intense. He soon becomes an oral type, remaining so throughout his life. Figuratively speaking, he must aggressively bite and devour what is desired and attractive. So it is with our entire culture.
The oral-sadist will sell his soul for the “pleasure” he mentally desires but cannot somatically process. Genitally, his armoring prevents him yielding, letting go and having anything except fleeting unsatisfactory releases. Orally, he is able to derive a modicum of pleasure, but usually at the cost of his physical health and girth size. He soon becomes addicted, not to pleasure, but to his addiction for it.
As said above, sexual dysfunction sounds a call directing one to deal with their armoring and emotional plague. So it is with the vast majority of physical and psychological ailments. However, thanks to the creatures in white coats, people are condemned to live out their whole lives, enduring untold suffering, unaware of this.
When sexual pleasure wanes or becomes ego-threatening, one is bound to regress to previous psychosexual stages. The child whose sensual needs are partially tended or completely ignored is sure to lack somatic-intelligence and grounding. Instead of receiving gentle erotic stimulation, which serves to connect him to his physicality, he comes to think of his body as a source of deficiency, discomfort and pain.
If he regresses to the Oral Stage, his need for pleasure, although displaced, becomes abnormally intense. He soon becomes an oral type, remaining so throughout his life. Figuratively speaking, he must aggressively bite and devour what is desired and attractive. So it is with our entire culture.
The oral-sadist will sell his soul for the “pleasure” he mentally desires but cannot somatically process. Genitally, his armoring prevents him yielding, letting go and having anything except fleeting unsatisfactory releases. Orally, he is able to derive a modicum of pleasure, but usually at the cost of his physical health and girth size. He soon becomes addicted, not to pleasure, but to his addiction for it.
Jaws (1975). My guess is that it would have been Reich's favorite film, since it illustrates all his theories.
There is no kind of social misery to equal the misery of the infants of biopathic parents - Wilhelm Reich
The armored type soon associates natural desire - and even life itself - as the cause of his problems. He eventually turns from pleasure, nature and life to become a thoroughly necrophilous character. His self-hate, internal distress and lack of wholesome orgasmic release drives him to demonize and suppress those who threaten his false armored image. His "pleasure" comes solely from seeing other people in pain. He clusters with others of his sado-masochistic kind to get his kicks. As a member of a political party he seizes the power needed to taunt, torture and "reform" the world.
This poisoned type, infected by emotional plague, cannot intimately bond with the object of his desire and experience sexual release in any truly healthy orgasmic way. He may be able to perform physically, but his mechanical approach to sexual acts yields less and less fulfilment. He soon finds himself caught in a terrible predicament due to which he either denies his need for pleasure, or seeks out more extreme and perverse jollies to give him the high he craves. Hence our crime-saturated culture. Hence the surfeit of broken marriages and families, and ever-increasing degeneracy, promiscuity and nihilism.
The armored type soon associates natural desire - and even life itself - as the cause of his problems. He eventually turns from pleasure, nature and life to become a thoroughly necrophilous character. His self-hate, internal distress and lack of wholesome orgasmic release drives him to demonize and suppress those who threaten his false armored image. His "pleasure" comes solely from seeing other people in pain. He clusters with others of his sado-masochistic kind to get his kicks. As a member of a political party he seizes the power needed to taunt, torture and "reform" the world.
This poisoned type, infected by emotional plague, cannot intimately bond with the object of his desire and experience sexual release in any truly healthy orgasmic way. He may be able to perform physically, but his mechanical approach to sexual acts yields less and less fulfilment. He soon finds himself caught in a terrible predicament due to which he either denies his need for pleasure, or seeks out more extreme and perverse jollies to give him the high he craves. Hence our crime-saturated culture. Hence the surfeit of broken marriages and families, and ever-increasing degeneracy, promiscuity and nihilism.
Later in the film, after being released from the sanatorium, Scottie obsessively pursues Judy, a young woman resembling his deceased lover. He invades her life, demanding she indulge his fantasies. She reluctantly agrees, allowing Scottie to give her expensive makeovers. He wants her to appear identical to Madeleine. Hitchcock shows that the real girl isn't important at all to Scottie. All that matters is his desire to shape her into the image of his dead lover. He craves an image of an image, but lost to himself he's incapable of non-neurotically loving anyone or anything. His desire to resurrect a dead image is not only sado-masochistic but completely necrophilous, the kind of "love" sought by the vast majority of armored types, the kind inflicted by most parents on their unfortunate children.
The absence of bioenergetic pleasure in adult life makes one wooden, joyless, cynical, caustic and compulsively outer-directed. It explains why we rely more and more on urbanized environments and predictable routines to save us from “falling over” and becoming disoriented. Prevalent as it is, it’s not a state that can easily be cured in children or adults, especially when the actual cure isn’t even acknowledged by the medical profession.
Whereas nature tends to unite mankind in the deep resources of the living principle, the cultural, religious, state, and other principles tend automatically to disrupt and to split this basic unity of international human existence – Wilhelm Reich
Instead of facing the emotional plague and its damage, we devise clever ruses to disguise the problem. We establish belief in mainstream allopathic healing techniques which never address the core problem. We deify the science that ignores the soma and award "experts" with all sorts of shallow inept theories on human pathology.
We also prefer Socialist political movements and paradigms which cunningly distract us from the truth, proffering forth absurd excuses for human pathology and distress, directing the gullible masses toward political causes and crusades designed to drain energy and justify one’s disinterest in Self.
Whereas nature tends to unite mankind in the deep resources of the living principle, the cultural, religious, state, and other principles tend automatically to disrupt and to split this basic unity of international human existence – Wilhelm Reich
Instead of facing the emotional plague and its damage, we devise clever ruses to disguise the problem. We establish belief in mainstream allopathic healing techniques which never address the core problem. We deify the science that ignores the soma and award "experts" with all sorts of shallow inept theories on human pathology.
We also prefer Socialist political movements and paradigms which cunningly distract us from the truth, proffering forth absurd excuses for human pathology and distress, directing the gullible masses toward political causes and crusades designed to drain energy and justify one’s disinterest in Self.
AAH, THE COLLECTIVE ORGASM!..The real reason people get together in groups. In the sixties, after Beatles concerts, auditoriums reeked of urine, after hundreds of young hysterical female fans had drenched their seats, en masse.
The average Socialist, says Reich, is the result of emotional plague and is therefore incapable of discerning it as a pathological phenomenon in the world. Such a type expertly side-tracks himself and humanity, pointing to this and that spurious cause for human distress. They do not see that these "causes" are merely secondary symptoms of a deeper etiology that remains forever unaddressed by the diseased. Personally and existentially, these compulsive "reformers" remain perfectly static. They never need look at themselves as Selves, preferring to remain altruistically fixated on other people’s pleasure and welfare.
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There are many children whose emotional flow has been stopped right at the beginning, who are already emotionally “dead” soon after birth – Wilhelm Reich
Reich, the supreme optimist and humanitarian, was finally forced to face his error. He had to admit that for all his genius the world did not want his cure. Infected with emotional plague it was and is impossible for people to value or apply the treatments he discovered. His venerable colleagues showed him they didn’t care to continue funding and supporting his research into childhood genitality. They weren’t interested in freeing themselves or the children of the future from Adultism or Matrophobia. The controversial subjects and problems he highlighted are simply too taboo, and of no interest to mainstream pediatricians. They are also of no interest to the vast majority of today's physicians, psychologists, psychiatrists and social-workers.
Crucially, the subject of child-psychology is of zero interest to most parents. Adultism is, however, going great guns with most parents throughout the world.
Reich, the supreme optimist and humanitarian, was finally forced to face his error. He had to admit that for all his genius the world did not want his cure. Infected with emotional plague it was and is impossible for people to value or apply the treatments he discovered. His venerable colleagues showed him they didn’t care to continue funding and supporting his research into childhood genitality. They weren’t interested in freeing themselves or the children of the future from Adultism or Matrophobia. The controversial subjects and problems he highlighted are simply too taboo, and of no interest to mainstream pediatricians. They are also of no interest to the vast majority of today's physicians, psychologists, psychiatrists and social-workers.
Crucially, the subject of child-psychology is of zero interest to most parents. Adultism is, however, going great guns with most parents throughout the world.
Reich arrested and charged for healing the world.
Consequently, Reich found himself under arrest for healing people. His institution was closed and his books and files burned. He was the first person to suffer this humiliation in the history of America. He was tried, found guilty and incarcerated. On the third of November 1957, the great man was found dead in his prison cell.
. . .
Michael Tsarion (2020)