Annie Reich (; ; 9 April 1902 – 5 January 1971) was a
Viennese Viennese may refer to:
* Vienna, the capital of Austria
* Viennese people, List of people from Vienna
* Viennese German, the German dialect spoken in Vienna
* Viennese classicism
* Viennese coffee house, an eating establishment and part of Viennese ...
-born
psychoanalyst
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious processes and their influence on conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on dream interpretation, psychoanalysis is also a talk th ...
who became a leading analytic theorist in post-war
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
New York may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* ...
.
Life
Born Annie Pink to a wealthy
Jewish
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
family, Annie Reich took a degree in medicine from 1921 to 1926;
became interested in psychoanalysis at the same time; began an analysis with
Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich ( ; ; 24 March 1897 – 3 November 1957) was an Austrian Doctor of Medicine, doctor of medicine and a psychoanalysis, psychoanalyst, a member of the second generation of analysts after Sigmund Freud. The author of several in ...
(interrupted by their marriage in 1922); continued analysis with
Hermann Nunberg Hermann "Herman" Nunberg (; 23 January 1884 – 20 May 1970) was a Polish-born American psychoanalyst and neurologist.
Life
Nunberg was born in 1884 in Będzin which was then part of Congress Poland. He earned his medical degree in 1910 from the Un ...
; and also had a training analysis with
Anna Freud
Anna Freud CBE ( ; ; 3 December 1895 – 9 October 1982) was a British psychoanalyst of Austrian Jewish descent. She was born in Vienna, the sixth and youngest child of Sigmund Freud and Martha Bernays. She followed the path of her father a ...
.
She had two daughters –
Eva Reich and
Lore Reich – with Reich before their separation in 1933.
Thereafter Annie Reich moved with her children to
Prague
Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...
, to become part of the circle around
Otto Fenichel
Otto Fenichel (; 2 December 1897, Vienna – 22 January 1946, Los Angeles) was an Austrian psychoanalyst of the so-called "second generation". He was born into a prominent family of Jewish lawyers.
Education and psychoanalytic affiliations
Otto ...
; before emigrating to the United States on the eve of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
.
Theoretical contributions
After an early publication on the successful treatment of a paranoid (1936), Reich produced a study of female
sexual submission
Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing organism produces male or female gametes.
Sex, SEX or sexual may also refer to:
*Sexual intercourse, a sexual activity
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Sex'' (1920 ...
in terms of identification with the partner's superior body (1940). She returned to the theme after the war, with a study of narcissistic object choice in women, which she saw as driven by what she called 'narcissistic want', in turn the product of childhood
narcissistic injury
In psychology, narcissistic injury, also known as narcissistic wound or wounded ego, is emotional trauma that overwhelms an individual's defense mechanisms and devastates their pride and self-worth. In some cases, the shame or disgrace is so sig ...
. A lack of self-esteem was met by identification with a
grandiose male partner.
Reich explored another route for dealing with self-esteem issues in a study of
grotesque
Since at least the 18th century (in French and German, as well as English), grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic, hideous, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus ...
humour. By caricaturing her own body flaws, the protagonist was able simultaneously to attack those around her. In this way she was able to fend off temporarily the condemnation of her own strict
superego
In psychoanalytic theory, the id, ego, and superego are three distinct, interacting agents in the psychic apparatus, outlined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche. The three agents are theoretical constructs that Freud employed t ...
, in a struggle that had however to be ceaselessly renewed, and whose occasional failure led to deep depression. Reich's interest in such early damage to self-esteem makes her work a bridge between
ego psychology
Ego psychology is a school of psychoanalysis rooted in Sigmund Freud's structural id-ego-superego model of the mind.
An individual interacts with the external world as well as responds to internal forces. Many psychoanalysts use a theoretical c ...
and
self psychology
Self psychology, a modern psychoanalytic theory and its clinical applications, was conceived by Heinz Kohut in Chicago in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, and is still developing as a contemporary form of psychoanalytic treatment. In self psychology, t ...
.
Reich also made contributions to the technique of psychoanalysis, specifically on
countertransference
Countertransference, in psychotherapy, refers to a therapist's redirection of feelings towards a patient or becoming emotionally entangled with them. This concept is central to the understanding of therapeutic dynamics in psychotherapy.
Early ...
and on the termination of therapy. She restated the classical view of countertransference as the projection of past attitudes and feelings of the analyst on to the patient, in opposition to the interactive view then coming to the fore of countertransference as revealing something about the ''patient'': the methodological challenge she presented of distinguishing between the two still remains cogent. She also warned that, even after analysis of the
transference
Transference () is a phenomenon within psychotherapy in which repetitions of old feelings, attitudes, desires, or fantasies that someone displaces are subconsciously projected onto a here-and-now person. Traditionally, it had solely co ...
, the analyst will still appear "as a person endowed with special power, special intelligence and wisdom...as partaking in the
omnipotence
Omnipotence is the property of possessing maximal power. Monotheistic religions generally attribute omnipotence only to the deity of their faith. In the monotheistic religious philosophy of Abrahamic religions, omnipotence is often listed as ...
which the child attributes to the parents", a problem only the lapse of time post-termination may cure.
Selected articles
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*
*
See also
References
External links
Classical paper
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reich, Annie
1902 births
1971 deaths
Austrian Jews
American people of Austrian-Jewish descent
American psychoanalysts
Jewish psychoanalysts
Freudian psychology
American women psychiatrists
American psychiatrists
Austrian women psychiatrists
Austrian psychiatrists
Austrian emigrants to the United States
20th-century American psychologists
20th-century Austrian women physicians
20th-century Austrian physicians