Diagnosis of a particular type thus provides the client with a deeper understanding of himself, the integration of his / her own unconscious content into consciousness, practical instructions on how to work with his / her type of personality, and also offers effective procedures for releasing muscular armor and trauma. A deeper insight into Reich’s personality types also helps us understand the other character types and interactions that arise between them.
REICH CHARACTER TYPES – character “armor”
With increasing experience, Reich hypothesized about character armor. Patients make it harder to heal “by their very nature” – in other words, by their “character”. Character armor manifests as “character resistance” in treatment. The emergence of character armor is explained by Reich as a result of the interplay of dynamic psychic powers. The instincts triggered a defensive reaction. There are very many of these reactions and anti-reactions in the personality of the client. They are deposited at different depths in many layers, depending on the time in which the conflict in the background was fought. Reich compares these layers to layers of geological subsoil. The fought conflict leaves a mark on the personality, which manifests itself as the so-called “character calcification”. In this context, the development of the personality of Reich is expressed as follows: “Functionally antagonistic unity of instinct and defense makes it possible to simultaneously grasp current and early childhood experiences. … The whole world of past experience lives in the shape of the present attitude of character. The personality of each individual is a functional sum of all past experiences. ”Maintaining this character’s armor is extremely energy intensive, Reich
they claim that the energy that keeps this armor together is destructiveness. Patients responded to any disturbance of the balance between instincts and defenses by deep hatred. Reich also began to understand this hatred as a form of character defense – resistance. Shapiro in his study writes that Reich
he rejected the idea that the patient’s resistance could be attributed to unconscious self-destructive goals. Rather, he insisted that resistance was the product of self-protecting motives.
Mental and somatic defensive components serve the same purpose. It protects the individual from suffering from experiencing conflicts of instincts, needs and frustrations on the part of society. This gave birth to the idea that a psychic defensive attitude has its physical expression in the form of muscle armor
Reich wondered how to justify the strong destructiveness that the defensive character armor holds together. He found the answer to the question in repressed sexuality and aggression. He began to investigate this aspect in more detail, and after several years of work, he explained that character-related destructiveness was nothing but the rage that one feels about frustration in life because of a lack of sexual satisfaction. This explanation
It may be considered too simplistic, but we must realize at what time Reich lived and how sexuality was a taboo subject. It most likely caused mental conflicts. It should also be noted that Reich further developed some ideas of his teacher Freud, in whose teaching sexuality also occupied an important place. I believe that today the causes of neurosis can be explained in a different way, but I admit the weight of Reich’s explanation.
It is interesting to look at the aspect of destructiveness – emotions of rage and aggressive behavior from a different angle. On the one hand, it is a natural response to an attempt to upset character defenses that protected the individual and allowed him to function, satisfy his needs while meeting the demands of society. But there is a second aspect. “If I consider destructivity to be a force that has the power to reshape form, I come to the fact that destructiveness is a force with creative potential.” Emotions of rage and aggression are very charged and strong in energy terms, they can
to strongly energize the individual. Seen through this lens, destructivity is not negative, but is a force that can positively change an individual.
REICH CHARACTER TYPES – origin of character
Origin of character in terms of development of basic human needs.
(It is an enumeration of the phases of the character defense formation process, which includes the following elements: “innate human needs, characteristic forms of their dissatisfaction (frustration) and subsequent characteristic solutions, which we will come to in the next articles.” practice with clients along with others.
1. Self-confirmation – the organism expresses its basic needs, the natural right to pulsate by expansion and contraction. Specifically, the right to exist, the right to have needs, the right to separation and independence, the right to make decisions about yourself, the right to love and to love sexually. They are basic needs, and the frustration of each one determines the emergence of a certain type of character.
2. Negative environmental reaction – social environment, most often parents, negates these basic needs or these needs are insufficiently met. When the inner energy is blocked, it causes a natural organismic reaction.
3. Reaction of the organism – the natural reaction of the organism consists in inducing the relevant affection of resentment, for example, anger or fear. In this way, the young child gives his / her parent feedback on the need to change the child’s behavior. If it changes, everything is fine and the child does not create pathological negation.4. Self-denial – occurs when the negative reaction of the environment is stable and the reaction of the organism is not able to modify it. At this stage it is important to point out that now the defensive (in some sense pathological) process begins, where the defensive character structure is formed. First, the young child gives up the struggle for self-affirmation and suppresses its desire to live, freezes its needs, stifles its autonomy, denies its need for support and
hold back their love. Secondly, it also suppresses all reactions of the organism, suppresses socially unacceptable emotions of defiance, fear, rage, etc. Strategies of self-denial may vary depending on the stage of development of the individual’s ego. They can be primitive if the negative reaction of the environment came very suddenly, but they can also be highly complex defense character structures that use sophisticated strategies.
5. Adaptation process – is the last stage of forming a defensive character structure. While at the stage of self-denial, the individual sought a way to negate his needs and suppress his negative response to their frustration, at the stage of adjustment, he seeks the resources to support the “ego ideal” in Winnicott’s “false self” formulation. The individual is looking for a way to solve a problem that has no solution. How to live as an ideal individual who survives in an environment that frustrates his needs, his essential expression and where he must not express his true feelings. This type of survival manifests itself in the type of defensive character structure, it is behavioral and cognitive strategies that support a compromise between need and environment. This five-phase process is very useful when considering the causes of a defensive character structure. The variety of developmental needs also determines the variety of individual types of characters that arise when the needs are not satisfied.
When psychologist Johnson synthesized the works of prominent representatives of egopsychology, he found that early childhood needs were large but finite. For a better idea and for a more detailed study here are listed with the author:
– “the need for attachment to the primary caregiver (Bowlby)
– the need for individualization through exploration, self-activity,
creating your own borders (Mahler)
– the need for self-expression (Kohut, Lowen)
– the need for an attuned I-to-Other relationship (Kohut, Stern) ”This enumeration illustrates the fact that since Freud’s time the spectrum of innate human needs has expanded considerably.