Annie Reich (; 9 April 1902 – 5 January 1971) was a
Viennese Viennese may refer to:
* Vienna, the capital of Austria
* Viennese people, List of people from Vienna
* Viennese German, the German dialect spoken in Vienna
* Music of Vienna, musical styles in the city
* Viennese Waltz, genre of ballroom dance
* V ...
-born
psychoanalyst
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: + . is a set of Theory, theories and Therapy, therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a bo ...
who became a leading analytic theorist in post-war
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
.
Life
Born Annie Pink to a wealthy Jewish family, Annie Reich took a degree in medicine from 1921–1926;
became interested in
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
at the same time; began an analysis with
Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich ( , ; 24 March 1897 – 3 November 1957) was an Austrian Doctor of Medicine, doctor of medicine and a psychoanalysis, psychoanalyst, along with being a member of the second generation of analysts after Sigmund Freud. The author ...
(interrupted by their marriage in 1922); continued analysis with
Hermann Nunberg Hermann/Herman Nunberg (23 January 1884 - 20 May 1970) was a psychoanalyst and neurologist born in Będzin which was then part of the German Empire.
Training and life
Nunberg earned his medical degree in 1910 from the University of Zurich, wher ...
; and also had a training analysis with
Anna Freud
Anna Freud (3 December 1895 – 9 October 1982) was a British psychoanalyst of Austrian-Jewish descent. She was born in Vienna, the sixth and youngest child of Sigmund Freud and Martha Bernays. She followed the path of her father and contribu ...
.
She had two daughters—
Eva Reich
Eva Renate Reich (27 April 1924 – 10 August 2008) developed a type of infant massage.
Reich was the eldest child of Annie Pink and Wilhelm Reich, who was a well-known psychoanalyst who studied with Sigmund Freud. Reich was born in Vienna and mo ...
and Lore Reich Rubin—with Reich before their separation in 1933.
Thereafter Annie Reich moved with her children to
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
, to become part of the circle around
Otto Fenichel
Otto Fenichel (2 December 1897 in Vienna – 22 January 1946 in Los Angeles) was a psychoanalyst of the so-called "second generation".
Education and psychoanalytic affiliations
Otto Fenichel started studying medicine in 1915 in Vienna. Already ...
; before emigrating to the United States on the eve of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
Theoretical contributions
After an early publication on the successful treatment of a paranoid (1936), Reich produced a study of female
sexual submission
BDSM is a variety of often erotic practices or roleplaying involving bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, sadomasochism, and other related interpersonal dynamics. Given the wide range of practices, some of which may be engaged ...
in terms of identification with the partner's superior body (1940). She returned to the theme after the war, with a study of narcissistic object choice in women, which she saw as driven by what she called 'narcissistic want', in turn the product of childhood
narcissistic injury
Narcissistic injury, also known as "narcissistic wound" or "wounded ego" are emotional traumas that overwhelm an individual's defense mechanisms and devastate their pride and self worth. In some cases the shame or disgrace is so significant that t ...
. A lack of self-esteem was met by identification with a
grandiose
In the field of psychology, the term grandiosity refers to an unrealistic sense of superiority, characterized by a sustained view of one's self as better than others, which is expressed by disdainfully criticising them (contempt), overinflating ...
male partner.
Reich explored another route for dealing with self-esteem issues in a study of
grotesque
Since at least the 18th century (in French and German as well as English), grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic, hideous, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus ...
humour. By caricaturing her own body flaws, the protagonist was able simultaneously to attack those around her. In this way she was able to fend off temporarily the condemnation of her own strict
superego
The id, ego, and super-ego are a set of three concepts in psychoanalytic theory describing distinct, interacting agents in the psychic apparatus (defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche). The three agents are theoretical const ...
, in a struggle that had however to be ceaselessly renewed, and whose occasional failure led to deep depression. Reich's interest in such early damage to self-esteem makes her work a bridge between
ego psychology
Ego psychology is a school of psychoanalysis rooted in Sigmund Freud's structural id-ego-superego model of the mind.
An individual interacts with the external world as well as responds to internal forces. Many psychoanalysts use a theoretical c ...
and
self psychology
Self psychology, a modern psychoanalytic theory and its clinical applications, was conceived by Heinz Kohut in Chicago in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, and is still developing as a contemporary form of psychoanalytic treatment. In self psychology, the ...
.
Reich also made contributions to the technique of psychoanalysis, specifically on
countertransference
Countertransference
is defined as redirection of a psychotherapist's feelings toward a client – or, more generally, as a therapist's emotional entanglement with a client.
Early formulations
The phenomenon of countertransference (german: G ...
and on the termination of therapy. She restated the classical view of countertransference as the projection of past attitudes and feelings of the analyst on to the patient, in opposition to the interactive view then coming to the fore of countertransference as revealing something about the ''patient'': the methodological challenge she presented of distinguishing between the two still remains cogent. She also warned that, even after analysis of the
transference
Transference (german: Übertragung) is a phenomenon within psychotherapy in which the "feelings, attitudes, or desires" a person had about one thing are subconsciously projected onto the here-and-now Other. It usually concerns feelings from a ...
, the analyst will still appear "as a person endowed with special power, special intelligence and wisdom...as partaking in the
omnipotence
Omnipotence is the quality of having unlimited power. Monotheistic religions generally attribute omnipotence only to the deity of their faith. In the monotheistic religious philosophy of Abrahamic religions, omnipotence is often listed as one o ...
which the child attributes to the parents", a problem only the lapse of time post-termination may cure.
Selected articles
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*
*
See also
References
External links
Classical paper
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reich, Annie
1902 births
1971 deaths
Austrian Jews
American people of Austrian-Jewish descent
American psychoanalysts
Jewish psychoanalysts
Freudian psychology
American women psychiatrists
American psychiatrists
Austrian women psychiatrists
Austrian emigrants to the United States