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Passion of Youth is the 19th volume of Reich's work to be edited by Mary Boyd Higgins and Chester M. Raphael and to be published since his death in 1957. It is a slim, strange volume. It contains none of the theoretical brilliance of Character Analysis (1972) or The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1970). Nevertheless it is an important volume for the materials it provides for historical research into the private life of one of the great pioneers of psychoanalytic theory.
The only serious complaint to be made against this volume involves the editing. It is clear that in some sense the Higgins-Raphael editions constitute a Standard Edition of Reich's work. But the editorial commentary that should accompany this volume (and most of the others in the series) is woefully lacking. Passion of Youth is assembled from at least three sources: a reminiscence of Reich's childhood and youth written in 1919, a recollection of his years in the Austrian army during World War I written in 1937, and a series of diary entries dated between February 1919 and October 5, 1921. The volume consists of three parts that appear to correspond to these three sources. And yet it is obvious that in the third section—the diary entries material written at another date intrudes. (see pp. 71-77, 124-126, possibly 127-135, 149-151, and 175-178.) This intrusion is evident from the tone of the writing, from a certain retrospective form of narration, from the use of full names as opposed to first names or nicknames, and from the duplication of events within the diary entries and the interposed material.
What is the source of this foreign material? We are not told. Presumably it could not be a continuation of the childhood reminiscence, since this was written in 1919, before the events discussed. Is it a continuation of the 1937 material? Possibly, but there is no direct evidence that this is the case. Further, the 1937 material is referred to as an excerpt from Reich's History of Sexpol. But this reference o