Aduentures in Ideas: Clues to the Third Ear

“New Ways in Psychoanalytic Technique,” annotated by this introduction, marks a particular focal point in the writings of Theodor Reik. This article, presented to the Twelfth International Psychoanalytic Congress in 1932, follows The Compulsion to Confess 15 and The Unknown Murderer. 16 It is the reculer pour mieux sauter preceding Surprise and the Psychoanalyst 17, which is an earlier version of Listening with the Third Ear. 18

Another early glimmering of the concept of the “voice within” may be traced to an article published first in 1924, 14 and subsequently quoted in several books, wherein Reik reports spontaneous utterances of his son Arthur (then eight) which describe the boy's feeling of guilt when he disobeyed inwardly audible voices prohibiting such acts as running too quickly or masturbating. This relationship among feelings of guilt, inward awareness and historical reality is central in much of Reik's work.

“New Ways in Psychoanalytic Technique” was selected by Fenichel 3 for particular disagreement and differentiation from his own position, and thus has crucial historical significance, since most of American psychoanalytic writing has followed Fenichel's exposition. In this paper Reik attacks the idea of analytic therapy being taught as a highly systematized and definitive technique. Although he does not say so, he is obviously arguing against Wilhelm Reich's then recent publication on character analysis and “piercing of the character armor.” 12 Fenichel's position became much more consistent with this early work of Reich than with the point of view of Reik, and Reich's concept of character analysis has remained a cornerstone of the “orthodox” psychoanalytic position in this country.