Ebook: O Funcionalismo Orgonômico de Wilhelm Reich e A Sua Concepção de Saúde-Adoecimento

The subject of this study is orgonotherapy and the orgonomic functionalism, by Wilhelm Reich (1897 – 1957), a reseacher and physician who was devoted to develop his own therapeutic theories and techniques, which are still unkwnown and scarcely referred to by the scholarly community. The main goal of this research is to perform an interpretation and a synthesis around the orgonomic conception of health-illness, i.e., to describe, in a systematized way, the main ideas and proposals of this author, within a set of inter-related ideas, found in various texts still, hardly systematized. It is a theoretical-hermeneutic study. The primary bibliographic sources are books and articles written by Reich and his followers, which stand for the clinical and therapeutic axis of his work. The work is structured in four parts: the trajectory of the author and his work; the developments after his death by followers; the orgonomic functionalism; the conception of health-illness and some of its contributions to the present time. The interventions of orgonotherapy and its conception of health-illness are grounded on the orgonomic functionalism, the methodology of investigation developed by Reich, which is based on energetic premises, as well as in properties of the orgone energy, a primordial energy that he thought discovered. The orgonomic conception about health-illness is articulated around key concepts, which are present in the various texts written by the author, to name a few: the orgastic potency, the armoring, the notion of emotion as primary and secondary impulses, the orgone energy, and the pulse and its disturbances, as well as its blockings. The armoring can be understood as disturbances in the natural and spontaneous flow of orgone energy inside the body, which affect the basic energetic function, the orgonotic pulsation, which governs all vital processes, according to the author. Emotions correspond to the movement of orgone energy inside the body; and, the emotional blockages, the disturbances on the spontaneous movement of such energy, which interfere with the function of the pulsation. The chronic armoring is expressed in terms of serious emotional blockages, which are in the roots of several physiologic-organic derangements, psychopathological behavior, and a series of illnesses, such as the psychosomatic diseases, and have its roots in the first stages of the human development, long before organic symptoms are displayed. Among the contributions that the orgonomic conception of health-illness may offer to collective health are: a) an integrative view on the functioning of both psychological and physical processes; b) an understanding that, behind the psychosomatic diseases, serious emotional issues dwell which need attention; c) an understanding that corporal therapeutic practices are great help for treating mental diseases; d) the appointment for preventive care during pregnancy, birth and every other stages of the human development are important, in order to prevent from the causes of armoring and, thus being, preventing from diseases; and e) to show the importance of care an education of children, especially as far as sexuality issues are concerned, since there are found the pillars for both the prevention and the health promotion.