''Character Analysis'' (german: Charakteranalyse) is a 1933 book by

Wilhelm Reich Wilhelm Reich ( , ; 24 March 1897 – 3 November 1957) was an Austrian doctor of medicine and a psychoanalyst, along with being a member of the second generation of analysts after Sigmund Freud. The author of several influential books, most ...

Background

Reich finished the manuscript in January 1933. He submitted it to the Psychoanalytic Press in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, presided over by

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...

, who initially accepted it for publication. However, Freud cancelled the contract, wanting to distance himself from Reich's politics. Reich borrowed money and published the book privately in Vienna.

Summary

Reich argues that character structures were organizations of

resistance Resistance may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Comics * Either of two similarly named but otherwise unrelated comic book series, both published by Wildstorm: ** ''Resistance'' (comics), based on the video game of the same title ** ''T ...

with which individuals avoided facing their

neuroses Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving chronic distress, but neither delusions nor hallucinations. The term is no longer used by the professional psychiatric community in the United States, having been eliminated from th ...

: different character structures — whether schizoid, oral, psychopathic, masochistic, hysterical, compulsive, narcissistic, or rigid — were sustained biologically as body types by unconscious muscular contraction.

Reception

Harry Guntrip wrote that Freud's '' The Ego and the Id'' only gained practical importance when Reich's ''Character Analysis'' and Anna Freud's ''The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence'' were published, as these books first placed ego-analysis at the centre of psychoanalytic therapy. ''Character Analysis'' is referenced in '' A Thousand Plateaus'' (1980), by Gilles Deleuze and

Félix Guattari Pierre-Félix Guattari ( , ; 30 April 1930 – 29 August 1992) was a French psychoanalyst, political philosopher, semiotician, social activist, and screenwriter. He co-founded schizoanalysis with Gilles Deleuze, and ecosophy with Arne Næs ...

References

External links

* Reich, W. (1990)
Character Analysis (Chapters I-III)
', 3rd, enlarged edition, trans. Vincent R. Carfagno
Archived
from the original on 25 September 2012. {{Authority control 1933 non-fiction books Works by Wilhelm Reich