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The term, character resistance, may be found earlier in psychoanalytic literature—though not in Freud's writings—but for those who have participated in the development of psychoanalytic literature since the early twenties, it is tied up with the therapeutic theory and technique of Wilhelm Reich. It is, therefore, not possible to discuss the concept of character resistance without reviewing and re-evaluating the therapeutic ideas of Wilhelm Reich. I refer, of course, to those theories which he evolved while he was still a psychoanalyst; that is, before his sexobiological and 'orgonic' phase. I must confess to a feeling of hesitancy in presenting Reich's ideas because, having lived through the era of his impact on the therapeutic thinking of his time and having struggled out of it, I am not altogether in a position to make a completely objective appraisal of their significance for the present-day psychoanalyst. But judging from the interest in Reich's concepts which persists—especially among students—perhaps my re-examination will be of more than merely historical value.
Reich first presented his therapeutic ideas and developed his theory of resistance and his characterology in two papers: the first, On Technique of Interpretation and Resistance Analysis, (subtitled, On the Lawful Development of Transference Neurosis), published in 1927, and the second, On Character Analysis, which appeared the following year. The whole structure of his therapeutic theory and technique he expanded in his book, Character Analysis, published in 1933 in German, the English translation appearing in 1945.
To make his renovation of analytic therapy impressive and