Bioenergetic Body Psychotherapy and Character Analysis is a complete and scientifically documented psychotherapeutic technique which effectively treats all psychiatric and psychosomatic (biopathic) disturbances, without always resorting to the use of psychoactive pharmaceutical substances, the so-called psychotropic mediation. It is based on the technique of character analysis and on biophysical work, which processes the muscular tensions and rigidities of the body that bind and suppress emotion, thereby preventing the person from experiencing them, bring them to consciousness and expressing them with relief. Essential to therapy is the establishment of emotional contact between the therapist and the patient (orgonotic contact), in the context of the therapeutic relationship, wherein the defenses, needs, inhibitions and frustrations of the latter are understood and completely accepted by the former.

The goal of therapy is the gradual resolution of psychic resistances or defenses, also called psychic armoring, and of chronic muscular spasms, also called muscular or somatic armoring. The development of armoring, is effected by the repeated frustration of the child’s emotional needs in the first 4-5 years of its psychic development, and its final result is the formation of the child’s character (character structure), i.e. the specific type of its neurosis. Armoring is then established by the fear of punishment and guilt which are instilled in the child and its role is “to protect” the child from anxiety and psychic pain. Bioenergetic Body Psychotherapy and Character Analysis (orgonetherapy) helps bring to consciousness and deconstruct the patient’s armoring and pathological (neurotic) character attitudes and traits, which hinder the integrity and healthy functioning of the organism.

During the gradual loosening and removal of somatic and psychic armoring—always respecting the patient’s individualities, needs and capabilities—early memories of traumatic experiences rise and with them, the repressed and painful emotions which accompany them. The appearance of these hitherto unconscious emotions and their free expression and discharge, is felt by the person as a release, and is accompanied by deep relief. A new sense of self and of the environment is established, characterized by a wholesome perception and experiential realization of the inner and outer reality. Gradually this leads to the deconstruction and collapse of one’s neurotic attitudes, the overcoming of one’s inner psychic conflicts and the establishment of a healthy functioning which is felt pleasurably. In this way the patient achieves contact with oneself and one’s emotions, perceives reality the way it is, i.e. without projections or distortions, and responds maturely to one’s environment with a responsible, healthy, emotionally independent and effective way.

Where it is indicated and applied

The establishment of armoring disturbs the spontaneous bioenergetic pulsation of the organism, resulting in the appearance of chronic psychic and somatic dysfunctions, called biopathies. With the methodical undermining and removal of psychic and somatic armoring, Bioenergetic Body Psychotherapy and Character Analysis has very good results in all psychic biopathies and a wide spectrum of somatic biopathies that cover the entire field of clinical pathology.

  • psychic biopathies
  • anxiety syndromes and panic attacks
  • behavior and personality disorders
  • compulsive disorders and obsessions
  • mood disturbances: depression, maniacal and hypomaniacal behavior, bipolar disorder etc.
  • schizophrenia and other psychoses
  • food intake disorders (anorexia nervosa, bulimia)
  • disturbances of sexual identity, sexual dysfunctions (erectile disturbances, frigidity) and sexual deviations
  • prevention of early armoring in newborns and infants
  • daily issues of child upbringing and education in all developmental phases
  • children and adolescents with problems in behavior and communication, with difficulties in adapting to the school environment and the educational teaching process, with hyperactiveness and attention deficit
  • couples, families or groups who desire to improve their communication and mutual understanding, and during periods of conflict and tension

Bioenergetic Body Psychotherapy and Character Analysis (orgonetherapy) may bring a soothing effect on the whole spectrum of psychosomatic disorders, always with the close cooperation, instructions and directions of the treating physician of the respective specialty, by removing the armoring and and reestablishing the spontaneous bioenergetic pulsation. This psychotherapeutic method does not replace the appropriate treatment of the specialist, nor does it cure the following diseases, in general and in particular, but has a synergistic effect:

  • skin and nose allergies, bronchial asthma
  • headaches and migraines
  • gastritis, esophagitis, gastroesophagal regression and gastric or duodenal ulcers
  • chronic constipation and spastic or ulcerous colitis
  • arthritis and rheumatism, autoimmune diseases, diseases of collagen
  • diabetes type II, hyper- or hypo-thyreoidism, obesity
  • polycystic ovaries, period disturbances, amenorrhea, endometriosis and fibromyoma
  • ischemic heart disease, sympathicotonic disturbances of the cardiac rhythm and hypertension
  • epilepsy, multiple sclerosis
  • cases of cancerous shrinking

The psychotherapist with his or her training in Bioenergetic Body Psychotherapy and Character Analysis (orgonetherapy) and therapeutic interventions plays a decisive role in the prevention of biopathies, thwarting the establishment of early armoring in newborns and infants.

Knowing the deeper emotional needs of children, as these needs are forming in every developmental stage and age, the therapist advises the parents in all practical and everyday issues of children’s upbringing, such as breastfeeding and weaning, toilet training and sphincter control, school adaptation and learning, behavior at home and social relationships.

The therapist’s role can be catalytic for the critical and often explosive problems of delinquent behavior in adolescents during this transitional stage of their life towards adulthood, independence and emotional maturity.

The psychotherapeutic consulting for couples, families or groups, in conjunction with individual Bioenergetic Body Psychotherapy and Character Analysis improves the capability to comprehend and accept the other person, as well as the ability for mutual communication and emotional contact, so that one lives a fuller, healthier and happier life, by freeing one’s potential and by realizing one’s dreams.

The technique of Bioenergetic Body Psychotherapy and Character Analysis (orgonetherapy) was founded and developed by the psychiatrist and natural scientist Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) during his pioneering scientific quest spanning over thirty five years. Reich was a distinguished student of Freud’s and an active member of the psychoanalytic movement during the 1920s. Between the years of 1928 and 1930 he was assistant director of the Psychoanalytic Polyclinic in Vienna, and director of the Technical Seminar for Psychoanalytic Therapy of the same organization. Soon his clinical observations brought him in conflict with the theoretical approaches of his teacher and the then psychoanalytic status quo. The rift was inevitable and Reich officially withdrew from the psychoanalytic movement in 1934. He discovered sexual stagnation and its role in the creation of neuroses; he formulated the orgasm theory and recognized the existence of armoring and the way it forms in the organism; he introduced the concept of character into psychoanalytic thinking, defined the conditions of its formation and, finally, by disclosing its resistance in the progress of therapy he founded his technique of character analysis (1920-1930). He experimentally demonstrated the effects of armoring on the vegetative functioning and the character formation, and discovered techniques to treat somatic armoring (characteranalytic vegetotherapy, 1933-1939). With the discovery and experimental proof of the orgone (1939-1940), a universal and primordial energy substratum—whose nature is identical with biological energy (bioenergy) which permeates the organism—he renamed his therapeutic technique to orgone therapy (Bioenergetic Body Psychotherapy and Character Analysis).