[maxbendick]

One of my favorite radical psychoanalysts.

He has a stellar analysis of fascism in "The Mass-Psychology of Fascism." It's almost frightening how prescient he was not only for it's 1933 publication but for our current day as well. I wish more folks would check him out.

His fascination with orgone adds a lot of color to his work. I hope people don't write off his radical analyses for that. Despite the pseudoscience, he does get to the root of things. Great life-affirming stuff.

[dredmorbius]

Internet Archive: <https://archive.org/details/wilhelm-reich-the-mass-psycholog...> (full text)

Wikipedia: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mass_Psychology_of_Fascism>

[euroderf]

Not to oversimplify, but Reich saw a direct connection between the urge to fascism and the failure to find a state of sexual contentment (for lack of a better word).

[I_Am_Nous]

While it may not be direct, groups like internet incels blame lack of sexual contentment for basically their entire life situation and there are tinges of fascism in a lot of their ideology. A lack of agency in one aspect of life might increase the desire for control/belonging in another aspect.

[dbtc]

thanks for the book rec.

Who are your other favorite radical psychoanalysts?

[erdii]

Jessica Benjamin and her book "The Bonds of Love" really struck a chord with me. I believe that her concept "gender polarity" fundamentally underlies old and modern "gender wars".

Other books and authors I found really interesting:

- Estela Welldon and her Book "Mother, Madonna, Whore"

- Sándor Ferenczi, who was a close associate of Freud and pioneered the concept of "Identification with the Aggressor", which seems to be the driving force behind what we call "transgenerational inheritance" of trauma. His concept of the "confusion of tongues" between child and pathological adult is also very interesting!

- Mathias Hirsch, a german psychoanalyst who wrote a lot about trauma, love, sexual abuse and was not afraid to explore stigmatized topics. For example:

  - the effects of sexual relations between analysts and their patients (he saw parallels to incestous abuse in a parent-child relationship)
  - sexually abusive mothers and the idealization of motherhood
  - the fact that his pyschoanalyst Günther Ammon, who later became his boss at the Deutsche Akademie für Psychoanalyse, controlled the academy in a cult-like fashion

[maxbendick]

Definitely Guattari! Anti-Oedipus, which he wrote with Deleuze, is a trip and really wonderful. That's actually how I came across Reich.

Guattari is interesting for pioneering schizoanalysis at the La Borde clinic. He's also one of the most confusing writers I've ever come across, so I recommend the books cowritten with Deleuze over his solo stuff. He's got some whimsy to him just like Reich does.

[rendx]

Not psychoanalysts, but: CG Jung, Fritz Perls?