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Michel Cattier divides Reich's life and work into two distinct periods. The first, from 1897 to 1934, includes his activities as a traditional psychoanalyst and a member of the International Psychoanalytic Association. In 1934 Reich was expelled from the International Psychoanalytic Association and moved to Norway, where he became affiliated with the University of Oslo as lecturer and researcher. Cattier's book is devoted almost exclusively to Reich's writings during the first period. He states that Reich wrote “all his important books between 1925 and 1934,” having reached the peak of his scientific career at the age of 27.
Reich spent five years in Oslo, during which time he investigated and formulated the basic bioenergetic principles that underlay psychoanalytic thinking. His concept of the unity and antithesis of psychic and somatic processes is the key to an understanding of the mind-body relationship. For example, it was during his stay in Norway that Reich discovered the functional identity between the characterological armoring of a person and his muscular armoring or rigidity. The thesis that the way a person holds and uses his body expresses attitudes is becoming fairly well accepted today by psychologists in America. This thesis, which is the basis for bioenergetic therapy, is dismissed by Cattier with the remark, “There is perhaps some truth in all this.”
Another aspect of this research stemmed from Reich's interest in the nature of the energy that powered the sexual impulse. Reich became convinced that this energy was not electricity for one reason: electricity is alien and unpleasant to the body, whereas the sexual charge is sweet and pleasant. In pursuance of this interest Reich studied and described a phenomenon which he called the bionous disintegration of matter. He also did some brilliant microbiological studies of cancer cells. It is not known or appreciated that Reich was one of the first persons to photograph living cancer cells. I have seen his