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Observations on the Simultaneity of Emotional Muscular Reactions. A. Tallaferro. Pp. 455-478.
This article is the first to appear in a new department of the Revista de Psicoanálisis devoted to 'Psychosomatic Medicine'.
The author attempts in this paper to validate clinically the theories of Wilhelm Reich. He employs Reich's method of study of character to explore the conversion of emotion into muscular tension because the method permits thorough understanding of repression and muscular activity 'without need of investigating pathological phenomena'. Character-armor results from conflict between instincts and environment; reactions to environmental stimuli at this boundary resemble membrane-reactions in an amoeba. The author offers 'brief discussions and superficial interpretations' of some psychosomatic syndromes, including hypertension in muscles, asthenia, headaches, rheumatism, and disturbances of hearing and of vision. These brief formulations are poorly supported by such clinical examples as the following. 'A patient who had suffered from otosclerosis for several years had been examined by prominent specialists; only after a month of treatment by Reich's technique did the hearing improve