{"id":4590,"date":"2013-12-03T20:18:08","date_gmt":"2013-12-03T18:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wilhelmreich\/%ce%b7-%ce%b5%ce%be%ce%b5%ce%bb%ce%b9%ce%ba%cf%84%ce%b9%ce%ba%ce%ae-%ce%b9%cf%83%cf%84%ce%bf%cf%81%ce%af%ce%b1-%cf%84%ce%bf%cf%85-%ce%bf%cf%81%ce%b3%ce%bf%ce%bd%ce%bf%ce%bc%ce%b9%ce%ba%ce%bf%cf%8d\/"},"modified":"2024-08-21T10:24:12","modified_gmt":"2024-08-21T07:24:12","slug":"the-developmental-history-of-orgonomic-functionalism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wilhelmreich.gr\/en\/orgonomy\/the-developmental-history-of-orgonomic-functionalism\/","title":{"rendered":"The developmental history of orgonomic functionalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

From an article by Wilhelm Reich, M.D. published in the journal “Orgonomic Functionalism”, Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust Fund, Volume 1, Spring 1990.<\/em><\/p>\n

Since the best way to introduce someone to a new realm of knowledge is to describe the process by which it has evolved, I shall attempt to introduce the reader to orgonomic functional\u00adism by presenting the uniformity of the results which have been obtained over a period of three decades.<\/p>\n

Thus far, I have provided essentially thematic and historical descriptions. What I now want to do is to rearrange the familiar material, the many observations, clinical and experimental facts, and theoretical conclusions, and I want to do this in such a way that the rationality of consistent natural research presents itself to us in a logical sequence of observation, hypothesis, ex\u00adperimental confirmation, and new findings. This arrangement of the orgonomic facts will ultimately lead us to formulate func\u00adtional equations which will link up with the thought operations of classical mathematics and provide satisfactory insight into the modus operandi of a thinking being who seeks to comprehend the natural world around him. Observer and natural function, subjective sensation and objective stimulus, perception and ob\u00adject will appear to us in the new light of a functional unity of all nature. Ultimately we will have to acknowledge that the biological structure of the observer cannot be excluded from his study of nature or from any assessment of the results of his research. Scientific thinking embodies a certain logic and ration\u00adality, and these reflect nothing less than the harmony of natural events which, until now, have been extolled only in great poetry. We will also be able to assign the irrational to its proper place and trace its history for a short distance.<\/p>\n

The realm of the psyche is not of supernatural origin<\/strong><\/p>\n

The development of the system of functional thought proceed\u00aded from one unproven conviction: Human emotional life is not of supernatural origin. It is located within the bounds of nature and is investigable. Like the rest of nature, it obeys the functional laws of matter and energy.<\/p>\n

This conviction had to wrestle with two gigantic facts with which it was at variance:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The laws of natural events as uncovered by chemistry, phys\u00adics, and mathematics cannot be brought into accord with the functions which characterize emotional life. Seen from a fun\u00addamental standpoint, the mechanistic material view of nature covers only unessential realms of the living.<\/li>\n
  2. For the vast majority of human beings, the broad realm of emotions, sensations, philosophies of life, and practical lifestyles is anchored in mystical, supernatural forces which are universally based, in one form or another, on the idea of a God\u00adlike entity existing beyond the range of all sensory perceptions. This idea contradicted the view that human emotional life was located within the sphere of comprehensible natural processes.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Thus, even before it could begin to operate effectively, the technique of functional thinking came up against the rigid walls of the two systems of thought employed by humankind, namely mechanism (materialism, atomism, chemism, etc.) and mysticism (idealism, metaphysics, spiritualism, etc.) which can look back on several thousand years of development and are supported by powerful social organizations.<\/p>\n

    There was no question of providing a purely philosophical ba\u00adsis for the this-sidedness of the emotional sphere of life. This would not have solved anything and, sooner or later, it would have silently disappeared. There was only one route to take, and that was to engage in the direct observation of natural events and to explain these observations by logical analysis. The words \u201cfunction\u201d and \u201cfunctional\u201d were in use at the time but they said nothing about the basic problem. On the contrary, they of\u00adten led people astray, as for example in the case of psychiatry, where \u201cfunctional\u201d illnesses were regarded as \u201cimaginary\u201d complaints. And there was a deep, unbridgeable gap between the medical and the physical concept of what is \u201cfunctional.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Natural functioning is basically an energy process<\/strong><\/p>\n

    To the ancient Greek observers of nature, the inanimate world seemed filled with substance in motion. There was a prevailing view that everything moves, everything is \u201cin flux.\u201d This basic viewpoint persists in present-day natural research. \u201cMovement\u201d and \u201cenergy process\u201d are inseparable because movement, or the overcoming of space, presupposes a force which impels the sub\u00adstance. Today I can no longer explain why in my natural scientif\u00adic conception I gave preference to the \u201cenergy\u201d process over \u201cmatter\u201d or \u201csubstance.\u201d This attitude on my part was more likely to create problems because the principal direction of thought in physics and chemistry was atomistic, i.e. materialistic; in other words, all nature was conceived of as having evolved from atoms in motion. This view had imposed itself on the elec\u00adtron theory, which was at the time (approximately 1919) gaining considerable ground. Even the smallest units of electricity pos\u00adsessed mass, i.e. they were particles, although of a special kind. The contradiction contained in the emerging theory of functionalism was thus as follows:<\/p>\n

    If natural functioning is basically an energy process, it follows logically that there must also be a primary or primordial energy. However, since electrons already possess mass, then \u201cmatter\u201d or particles must also have a primary existence. In purely logical terms it is unlikely that two such different entities as energy and mass could simultaneously be primary phenomena. And classi\u00adcal physics, including the modern energy-mass relationship, con\u00adcluded that mass and energy are primordial natural phenomena. Einstein had already eliminated the absolute distinction between mass and energy. Energy (E) was now mass moving at the speed of light (mxc2<\/sup>), but it was still \u201cmass\u201d and not in purely pri\u00admary terms, mass-free. True, it had been known since Becquerel and Curie that matter converts or breaks down into energy, and it was understood how this happens. But nobody, with the ex\u00adception of a few ether philosophers, suggested that mass could form from energy. Matter with its mass (m) was and remained a primordial, not further derivable natural phenomenon. I did not suspect at the time that this limitation is due to the nature of mechanistic thinking. It would not have helped much to know this because immediately a new problem would have presented itself, namely, if mass is not primordial then how can it be formed from energy?<\/p>\n

    Embryonic functionalism gave precedence to energy in natural development, without being able to prove it. And there was nothing at the time which would have explained where a young natural scientist might have acquired this prejudice. It was not a mystical inclination, because evolving functionalism sharply re\u00adjected any metaphysical conception of nature, such as entelechy, vis. spiritualism. From my present standpoint, it seems as if this preference was based simply in the sensations of motion in my own organism. It was nothing more than a prejudice which later proved to be well-founded.<\/p>\n

    From the first supposition that emotional processes are within the realm of comprehensible natural phenomena, and from the second supposition that all natural phenomena are primarily energetic, it follows logically that emotional and psychic phenomena must be ascribed basically to energy processes.<\/p>\n

    There is a \u201cpsychic energy\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Somewhere around 1919 my initial functional assumptions linked up with the theories formulated by the science of psy\u00adchoanalysis, which at the time had not yet abandoned its energy-related orientation, as it has done today. Freud was, I believe, the first researcher in the field of psychology to assume the exis\u00adtence of a \u201cpsychic energy.\u201d According to this view, psychic ideas and perceptions were associated with varying amounts of \u201caffect\u201d. These affects, which were later simply called \u201cemo\u00adtions,\u201d were expressions of biological drives. For example, a process of repression might only act on an idea, as in the case of hysteria, while leaving the associated affect unrepressed; or it might act merely on the affect, while leaving the idea un\u00adtouched, as in the case of obsessional neurosis. Also, both the idea and the affect may be repressed, as happens in certain cases of total amnesia. In this view there was no connection between ideas and affects, either functionally or genetically. \u201cIdea\u201d and \u201caffect\u201d were completely different and separate psychological entities.<\/p>\n

    At that time, psychoanalytic theory was based on the same principle as classical physics. Just as in nonliving nature \u201cmat\u00adter\u201d or \u201cmass,\u201d which were primary, were moved and displaced by \u201cforces,\u201d so in the psychological sphere \u201camounts of ener\u00adgy\u201d became affixed to static ideas, moving and displacing them. The ideas corresponded to the \u201cmatter,\u201d and the \u201cdrives\u201d cor\u00adresponded to the \u201cforces\u201d or \u201cimpulses\u201d
    \nof classical physics.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

    It was at this point that the first major effort to utilize the functional technique of thinking commenced.<\/p>\n

    The theory of sexual economy, which in those days was still in the embryonic stage, was used to make a thorough study of the function of the orgasm. It found among other things that a sexual idea, such as that of the sexual act, could not be produced if the corresponding emotions were lacking or if the organism had just lost its state of high tension through gratifica\u00adtion, i.e. through \u201cdischarge of energy.\u201d Thus there was some\u00adhow a closer link between an idea and an energy process than was assumed by psychoanalytic theory.<\/p>\n

    Detailed phenomenological studies on the pleasure sensation left no doubt that it cannot be separated from the drive func\u00adtion. It was not a case of a drive here striving toward a pleasure there, but instead the drive was nothing more than the motor function of pleasure itself.<\/p>\n

    Now, since the sensation of pleasure is a psychic function while a drive is a physical function, two previously separate functions in the organism were, with one stroke, combined into a \u201cfunctional unit.\u201d Drive and pleasure were one and the same as far as motor activity is concerned.<\/p>\n

    \"Motor<\/p>\n

    Motor activity was no longer a function of \u201cdrive\u201d; instead, the drive urge was the function of a still undefined biological motor activity. The same was true for the sensation of pleasure.<\/p>\n

    Bodily excitation, the drive, was identical with a psychic sen\u00adsation with respect to a certain biological process, sexual motor activity. At that time it was not clear what was moving in the body. And it was equally unclear what was meant by the term \u201csexual function.\u201d Freudian sexual psychology was fully aware of these uncertainties. Freud assumed that the drives \u201care rooted in biological processes\u201d and that these processes are in some way chemical in nature. Later, psychoanalysis completely lost its orientation regarding such fundamental questions of science. It became bogged down in an embarrassing mixture of psychiatric business and loose talk about human beings.<\/p>\n

    However, the thought technique of orgonomic functionalism had gained its first important position: Ideas may come and go. Their existence depends on the state of motion of the body’s energy.<\/p>\n

    Sensation and excitation are identical in one still undeter\u00admined common functioning principle. Sensation is a function of excitation, and excitation in turn is a function of sensation. They are inseparable and form a functional unit; and at the same time they are not one and the same, but different from each other, indeed even opposed to each other. This gave rise to the first formulation of the \u201csimultaneity of identity and an\u00adtithesis.\u201d<\/p>\n

    This development occurred between 1919 and 1923. It was not clearly understood at the time that this was an innovation in thinking, but the result was presented in my paper entitled \u201c\u00dcber Triebenergetik\u201d[2]<\/a> (1923) and in my psychoanalytic studies on genitality from then on.<\/p>\n

    These initial observations were the starting point for the for\u00admulation which was so important in shaping my later compre\u00adhension of the processes of consciousness, namely that ideas are \u201cconcentrations of energy quanta,\u201d i.e., that psychic ideas can be traced back to energy processes.<\/p>\n

    This innovation in thinking was totally without precedent in the field of natural science. The fundamentally new element here was the assumption that two functions could be simultaneously identical and antithetical. Natural philosophy could only offer the monistic view of the unity of body and soul, the dualistic conception of psychophysical parallelism, the mechanistic-materialistic, one-sided dependence of the soul on the body, and the spiritualistic (idealistic-metaphysical) dependence of matter on a supernatural world spirit. Freud’s method of thinking was essentially materialistic, but dualistic. It operated with two types of drive which had no connection in the depths. At first, there were the \u201csexual instincts\u201d and the \u201cego instincts\u201d; later, there were \u201csexual instincts\u201d and the \u201cdeath instinct.\u201d It was not un\u00adtil many years later, around 1927, that I found out about the system of thought known as \u201cdialectic materialism\u201d postulated by Friedrich Engels (\u201cAnti-Duhring\u201d).<\/p>\n

    This initial, still groping attempt to relate a psychic idea to an energetic state of movement decided the course of my work up to the discovery of the cosmic orgone and the orgonometric functional equations of 1947. It is not easy to clarify this here in simple terms, but the following diagram may serve to indicate why the psychoanalytic formulation and my initial functional formulation on the emotional process inevitably led in two op\u00adposite directions.<\/p>\n

    \"Cosmic

    Diagram of the relationship between idea and drive energy<\/p><\/div>\n

    Psychology very soon ignored the amount of affect \u201cwhich attaches to the idea\u201d and concentrated more and more on the contents, the experiences, conflicts, human relationships, etc. Al\u00adthough psychology is aware that experiences, conflicts, etc. are charged with affect to varying degrees, it is not interested in the origin of the affects. Indeed, psychology often commits the gross error of assuming that this wealth of affect itself derives from a mother fixation. In so doing, it overlooks the fact that the strong mother fixation is itself already the result of a special energy state of the infant organism.<\/p>\n

    Functionalism, which later led to the discovery of the cosmic orgone energy, instead concentrated its attention on the depen\u00addency of psychic contents\u2014ideas, conflicts, experiences, etc.\u2014on the energy state of the organism. Excessive mother fixation in a child, for example, now appeared as an expression of \u201cpent-up drive\u201d or \u201cenergy stasis,\u201d i.e. it corresponded to a disturbance in the release of energy by the organism. This theory was con\u00adfirmed clinically inasmuch as the conflict was resolved when the capacity for the orderly discharge of energy was restored. A genitally pent-up child clings orally to the mother. A genitally grati\u00adfied child does not cling to the mother but has playmates of its own age.<\/p>\n

    Psychology analyzes and breaks down experiences and con\u00adflicts and relates them back to earlier, historically important ex\u00adperiences. Current ideas and instinctual goals understandably emerge from earlier or repressed ideas and instinctual goals.<\/p>\n

    Functional orgone therapy does not break down experiences; it does not operate with associations of ideas, but primarily with instinctual energies which it releases from characterological and muscular blocks, thereby allowing the energies to flow freely again; it eliminates energy stasis. It is of no consequence to or\u00adgone therapy what experiences have led to the energy becoming dammed-up. The therapeutic goal of psychology is to recall for\u00adgotten experiences. The goal of orgone therapy is to mobilize the biological energy, the orgone, in the organism.<\/p>\n

    There is another difference between psychology and orgone biophysics which is of decisive importance, even for mathemati\u00adcal, orgonometric studies. The exclusive concentration on experiences and ideas has led to increasingly complex relationships and processes. In contrast, concentrating on the energy func\u00adtions progressively simplifies our understanding of the biological processes and therewith the wealth of human experiences and ideas, because all experiences can be related back to simple bio\u00adlogical energy processes. In order to clarify this contrast between simplicity at the deep biological level and complexity at the su\u00adperficial psychic level, one need only think of the infinite abun\u00addance and variations of psychotic and neurotic experiences. However, this profusion of experiences is based on one energy-related fact, namely, the stasis of sexual-biological energy. The pathological fantasies in all their confusion and endless com\u00adplexity collapse like a house of cards when the biological energy starts again to function naturally, i.e., economically.<\/p>\n

    In addition, seen from the standpoint of natural research which attempts to bring human beings back into harmony with nature, psychology does not lead beyond the psychic processes, while functional energetics leads from the idea to biological energy, and from biological energy to its origin in general, natu\u00adral energy functions. After all, energetic functionalism led logi\u00adcally to the discovery of the bions[3]<\/a> and then to that of the orgone.<\/p>\n

    \"Biophysical

    Diagram showing the relationship between complexity in the psychic sphere and simplicity in the biological sphere<\/p><\/div>\n

    \u201cPsychic energy\u201d – A function of biological cell excitation
    \n<\/strong><\/p>\n

    I have said already that sexual excitation was regarded as an effect caused by \u201cchemical substances\u201d which later became known as \u201csexual hormones.\u201d It was not stated how chemical, hormonal processes generate sexual excitation. The functional method of thinking had to overcome this chemical prejudice.<\/p>\n

    Sexual excitation is obviously an energy process. In contrast, chemical processes are materially based, because they are charac\u00adterized essentially by the formation or dissolution of bonds be\u00adtween atoms. The production or consumption of heat which takes place when this happens has nothing to do with the very manifest phenomenon of \u201cexcitation.\u201d The materially and chem\u00adically based interpretation of sexual emotion tried in vain to link a living function directly with a function of inanimate matter. This was a short circuit in mechanistic thinking. It bordered on the uncritical to assume that a living function originated from a nonliving function, without making the slightest attempt to explain the details of how this transition occurred. This faulty thinking is quite generally characteristic of the biochemical view\u00adpoint in biology.<\/p>\n

    Functionalism proceeded in a different way. It grouped togeth\u00ader the observable phenomena in the organism which are connect\u00aded with sexual excitation, and in the process it took another decisive step forward in the development of this thought tech\u00adnique, at the same time casting light on an important phenome\u00adnon: Observations revealed directly and irrefutably that the sen\u00adsation of pleasure and the sexual urge go together with excitation of the autonomic nervous system. This was a continu\u00adation of the link between somatic drive and psychic pleasure sensation which has been described previously. Instinctual drive and pleasure sensation are functionally identical as far as the mo-tor functions of the living organism are concerned. This now showed that the somatic drive is functionally identical with an excitation, i.e. a function or movement (not an immobile \u201csub\u00adstance\u201d) of the living nervous apparatus.<\/p>\n

    Thus, functionalism did not commit the error of deliberately and unjustifiably linking psychic function with a somatic func\u00adtion. Instead, through careful observation of the phenomena, it discovered a simultaneous interdependence and thus functional identity of psychic pleasure sensation, bodily sexual urge, and an observable excitation of the autonomic nervous system.<\/p>\n

    Nowadays, these facts are banal cliches even outside the field of orgonomy. But at that time, in the twenties, they were not self-evident. Even Muller, who was far ahead of his time, spoke in his collective work Die Lebensnerven (1931) in dualistic and finalistic terms of the \u201cgoal\u201d of pleasure which is \u201cserved\u201d by the excitation of the parasympathetic apparatus. In the function\u00adal view there was no apparatus here and goal there. Thus the former was not in the \u201cservice\u201d of the latter. Instead, pleasure sensation, instinctual drive, and parasympathetic excitation were merely different aspects of one and the same function, the total excitation of the living organism. These different aspects of one function were inseparable, because there is no pleasure sensation without instinctual drive, no instinctual drive without pleasure sensation, and neither exist without biological excitation, and vice-versa. The various \u201caspects,\u201d \u201cpurposes,\u201d \u201cservices,\u201d \u201cgoals,\u201d etc. do not exist at all. They were merely inventions of human fantasy, i.e. incorrect assumptions of mechanistic-mystical thought. When it is carefully considered, the statement \u201cdrive is in the service of pleasure or reproduction\u201d is entirely meaningless. Where does the drive come from? And where is the pleasure sensation located? These are the logical questions which we must then ask.<\/p>\n

    The formulation of the unity of pleasure, drive, and biological excitation also resulted in the solution of the problem posed by Freud, namely, how can sexual excitation change into anxiety. Freud had correctly observed that when sexual excitation is re\u00adpressed, it is replaced in many cases by anxiety. However, Freud was unable to explain this fact. At a later date, he completely abandoned the idea of a correlation between sexuality and anxi\u00adety, to the detriment of the research being carried out on drive processes. More than that, he totally separated both functions, erroneously ascribing anxiety to the \u201cego\u201d and sexuality to the \u201cid.\u201d He nevertheless admitted that the problem remained un\u00adsolved.<\/p>\n

    In contrast, functionalism was on the right track. If pleasure sensation, sexual drive, and parasympathetic excitation form one functional unit, if in addition\u2014and this has been confirmed clinically\u2014anxiety appears when sexual excitation and the pleas\u00adure sensation disappear, then anxiety belongs in a specific, al\u00adthough still incomprehensible way, to the functional unit of bio\u00adlogical excitation, bodily urge, and psychic sensation. Once this precondition was understood, it was no longer difficult to solve the riddle.<\/p>\n

    Biological excitation takes place in the nervous system of the living organism, i.e. in the autonomic nervous system. However, this nervous system consists of two groups of nerves which func\u00adtion antithetically, the parasympathetic and the sympathetic. All the phenomena of the pleasure function are associated with exci\u00adtations of the parasympathetic. When the pleasure function can\u00adnot operate, anxiety appears. It follows logically that if the parasympathetic function cannot operate, the sympathetic is stimulated. The phenomena of anxiety go together with func\u00adtions of the sympathetic system, provided that expansive im\u00adpulses are developed against the resistance of a contraction. If the sympathetic system is functionally antithetical to the parasympathetic system, then, logically, anxiety must be the an\u00adtithesis of pleasure. Thus, pleasure does not change into anxiety, but in anxiety biological excitation functions in an opposite direc\u00adtion to that of pleasure.<\/p>\n

    This represented a very important step forward in the formu\u00adlation of the life function. It was also supported by clinically verifiable phenomena. Anxiety is experienced essentially in the cardio-diaphragmatic region and, unless one is severely dis\u00adturbed, pleasure is experienced essentially in the genital. Thus the heart and genital are two antithetical realms in which the unitary biological excitation may become concentrated. Cardiac anxiety disappears when genital excitation occurs. If the biologi\u00adcal excitation is concentrated essentially in the genital apparatus, then the genital urge and the corresponding pleasure sensation are experienced. If the biological excitation is concentrated es\u00adsentially in the cardio-diaphramatic region, one experiences anxi\u00adety and is incapable of pleasure.<\/p>\n

    With these formulations, orgonomic functionalism had dis\u00adcovered, at first unconsciously, the \u201cbasic antithesis of the liv\u00ading\u201d: the antithesis of pleasure and anxiety, of parasympathetic and sympathetic, of expansion and contraction of the vital ap\u00adparatus, of periphery and center of the organism. The detailed clinical and experimental elaboration of this functioning realm of biological energy took about twelve years to complete (from 1925 to 1937). It spontaneously opened up the area of bion and orgone research.<\/p>\n

    I have already stressed that orgonomic functionalism is not just a different or new kind of natural philosophy, but a differ\u00adent and new kind of tool of natural research. An initially very unsophisticated tool, e.g. a stone axe, made possible the discov\u00adery of iron, and the discovery of iron made it possible to refine the tool from a stone axe into an axe made of iron, and so on. Thus, the method or the tool of natural research undergoes a development which is often far more important than the facts which are discovered.<\/p>\n

    With the theoretical formulation of the pleasure-anxiety an\u00adtithesis, which is rooted in biological excitation and differentiat\u00aded in various directions of one and the same excitation, energetic functionalism had won a more controllable, usable position. Whatever the natural facts involved, it was now able to apply the following methodological principles over and over again to ascertain to what extent these principles were valid; whether they can comprehend only certain parts of nature or whether they are generally valid; in other words, whether all nature follows the functional law which revealed itself in the functioning of the life apparatus and its emotions.<\/p>\n

    It should be stressed that by approaching natural research via the psychic emotions, the sphere of emotions has always re\u00admained within the realm of what can be investigated. Further\u00admore, the results which were ultimately obtained and used to develop an overall view of nature veered sharply away from the direction of mechanism and mysticism, without ending up in spiritualism.<\/p>\n

    First rules of functional thinking<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Unlike natural philosophy or the electron theory, orgonomic functionalism does not attempt to arrive at a total image of na\u00adture directly from certain individual facts. Thus, it does not im\u00admediately draw conclusions about the functional lawfulness of all nature from the special quality of the life apparatus. It is inherent in functionalism that it must repeatedly test, apply, and confirm the general principle of its method in each individual case. In each new step forward, the general principle of func\u00adtional thinking constantly reconstructs its tools to match the unique qualities of the new functions, in the same way that the general principle of erecting a scaffold is specifically modified for each new building. Thus, in addition to a generally valid basic law, which is simple and can be formulated in a few sen\u00adtences, orgonomic functionalism encompasses a broad range of specific tools and forms. We will find later, in the orgonometric realms, that this simultaneity of the basic form of thinking and its variation is reflected in the natural laws by a simultaneity of certainty and uncertainty, finiteness and infinity.<\/p>\n

    I would now like to list briefly the fundamental principles of the thought technique which have been applied with increasing clarity from about 1925:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Each newly discovered fact was burdened with the ques\u00adtion: Where is the second fact which is functionally antithetical to the known fact? (In this way, anxiety was discovered as the antithesis of pleasure.)<\/li>\n
    2. Once the two antithetically functioning facts were found, the next logical question was: If these two facts function in op\u00adposite directions, i.e. if they cancel each other out, like pleasure and anxiety, or determine each other, like drive and pleasure, or parasympathetic system and sexuality, then in what third function are they identical? Or, expressed differently: With re\u00adspect to what properties are they functionally identical?<\/li>\n
    3. Once the trio of two antithetical functions and their com\u00admon functioning principle had been discovered and brought to\u00adgether, then the next logical question was: Is the newly discov\u00adered common functioning principle, for example, the functional identity of pleasure and anxiety in the biological excitation of the organism, an ultimate indissoluble state, or is this common functioning principle itself the result of a splitting up or dissocia\u00adtion? That is to say, does it contain within its own functioning realm an opposite function, and what is the nature of this oppo\u00adsite function?<\/li>\n
    4. If it proved possible to find the common functioning prin\u00adciple of a1<\/sup> and a2<\/sup> in A, then B was sought as the antithesis of A, and let us say that X was found as the common function\u00ading principle in which the antitheses of A and B were function\u00adally identical.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      We can depict this method of thinking in diagrammatic form as follows:<\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/p>\n

      a1<\/sup> and a2<\/sup> are functionally antithetical, and simultaneously they are functionally identical with regard to A as their common functioning principle; A and B are antithetical functions which are functionally identical with regard to the common function\u00ading principle X, and so on.<\/p>\n

      Let us now replace the letters in the diagram by actual functions:<\/p>\n

      \"Biological<\/p>\n

      If this formulation of the common functioning principle of two antithetical functions is correct, i.e., if it corresponds to an objective process, then it necessarily leads to new discoveries or to theoretical simplifications. If the research does not develop, if there is no new connection or correlation with the common principles, then the formulation was incorrect. The antithetical functions and their common functioning principles cannot be arbitrarily arranged. Actual (objective) antitheses must be deter\u00admined which are rooted in an actual (objective) common princi\u00adple. The pleasure sensation, for example, can be antithetical to both the emotion of anxiety and that of rage. But in the antithe\u00adsis between pleasure and anxiety the common functioning princi\u00adple is different from that in pleasure and rage. In the first in\u00adstance, the common functioning principle is the general biological excitation. The capacity of this excitation to function or flow in two opposite directions, i.e., toward the periphery and toward the center, determines the antithesis of pleasure and anxi\u00adety. This can be seen clearly in the physiological phenomena of expansion in pleasure and contraction in anxiety.<\/p>\n

      On the other hand, the general biological excitation occurring in the antithesis, of pleasure and rage can no longer be taken as the direct common functioning principle when expansion and contraction of the living organism are seen as primary functions, ‘because both pleasure and rage go together with an expansion of the living organism. Contraction is excluded. The plasmatic expansion which together with its opposite, contraction, is based on the common principle of excitation at a deeper level of func\u00adtioning, itself becomes the common functioning principle of two antitheses, pleasure and rage, but at a higher level. Expansion is narrower than general excitation. It is therefore a principle of higher and thus lesser order.<\/p>\n

      This gives rise to an important principle for assessing the ranking of functions. They may be close to or far from the general natural principle. The closer they lie, the more all-encompassing they are; the further away they are located, the narrower they are, and the smaller their range of function. Thus we detect the \u201cdepth\u201d of the function, not in the fact that it is split up, because all functions divide, but in the breadth of the functioning realm, in the number of common functioning principles which it embraces.<\/p>\n

      The common functioning principle of pleasure and rage is thus the expansion of the living system. The antithesis of pleas\u00adure and rage derives from the fact that in pleasure the biological excitation affects the surface of the body, whereas in rage the deeper lying musculature is mobilized and the excitation does not reach the skin. In pleasure the energy charge of the skin increases, while it decreases in rage. These phenomena are demonstrable at the oscillograph.[4]<\/a> Now, since the surface of the skin functions essentially as a sensory apparatus while in con\u00adtrast the musculature functions as a motor and destruction ap\u00adparatus, this physiological difference also explains the difference between the goals of pleasure and rage. The goal of the former is the tactile sensation of pleasure at the surface of the organ\u00adism, while the goal of the latter is motor action and destruction.<\/p>\n

      Functionalism thus derives instinctual goals from instinctual functions, and not, the other way around, instinctual functions from instinctual goals, as is done by metaphysics. The motor action of the musculature is older than the goal of destruction, and the pleasure function existed before the goal of pleasure.<\/p>\n

      Functionalism does not derive motor activity as the \u201cconse\u00adquence” from muscular action as the \u201ccause,\u201d as is done by mechanistic materialism, but instead muscular movement and destructive motor activity are seen to be functionally identical in the action of hating. The one is inconceivable without the other. Functionalism replaces \u201ccauses\u201d by \u201ccommon function\u00ading principles\u201d of an ever deeper and more broadly encompass\u00ading order\/This method of thinking will later prove to be correct in orgonometric investigations.<\/p>\n

      [1]<\/a> This initial attempt to devise a natural scientific formulation of psychology in the early years of the twentieth century has in the meantime been completely stifled by run-of-the-mill theories about human nature.<\/p>\n

      [2]<\/a> \u201cConcerning the Energy of Drives.\u201d Included in Early Writings, <\/em>Volume One, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1975. [Eds.]<\/p>\n

      [3]<\/a> Cf. Reich, The Bion Experiments, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1979. [Eds.]<\/p>\n

      [4]<\/a> Cf. Reich, The Bioelectrical Investigation of Sexuality and Anxiety,<\/em> Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1982. [Eds.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      From an article by Wilhelm Reich, M.D. published in the journal “Orgonomic Functionalism”, Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust Fund, Volume 1, Spring 1990. Since the best way to introduce someone to a new realm of knowledge is to describe the process by which it has evolved, I shall attempt to introduce the reader to orgonomic functional\u00adism […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":4942,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4590","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilhelmreich.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilhelmreich.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilhelmreich.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilhelmreich.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilhelmreich.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wilhelmreich.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4590\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilhelmreich.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilhelmreich.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}