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by:
Silvia Specht Boadella
David Boadella
Esther Frankel
Milton Corrêa
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This issue pays homage to Eva Reich who, as written in the Personal message by David Boadella, dedicated her life to build
creative bridges between worlds. Eva’s passion for truth and her clear enthusiasm for helping people in trouble was an inspiration for David and Silvia and also for us and we hope that she can
inspire all the people who want a better and peaceful world.
An introductory biography (and the obituary) of Eva Reich is presented by her daughter Renata Reich Moise, with the title The peace on earth
begins in the uterus, which describes Eva’s travels to 30 countries, battling for a better world. In this article Renata also reminds us about “Butterfly Baby Massage”, created
by Eva, and that in Berlin, special ambulances rush to homes where babies are crying inconsolably, using her methods to calm the babies.
The article Household Use of the Orgone by Renata Reich presents a touching story about the beginning of Eva Reich’s life as the
daugther of Wilhelm Reich and as the revolutionary doctor in a small town in the coast of USA. Renata shows how Eva for as long as 10 years, with love and courage used creatively, all her skills,
traditional western medicine, natural medicine, and Orgone medicine. She diagnosed people, combining her understanding of character structure, Reichian blood test looking for t-bacilus, as well using
skills she had learned in medical school. With care and admiration Renata lists some clinical notes that Eva wrote about her clients and how Eva treated them with orgone acummulator. The design of some
acummulators is described by Renata and she shows also how they was used to help Eva Reich in her illness before she died.
At the turn of the pendulum’s swing is a collection of texts from an Eva Reich diary organized by Renata Reich. In this intimate
writing Eva express her soul, despair, anger, idealism and faith.
Eva Reich in her article The Battle for a New humanity wrote about her preventive work based on the biological evolution according to the
findings of Wilhelm Reich. The biological evolution which produces human beings who could tolerate gentleness and pleasure in life, who would shun violence and to whom war would be anachronistic. She
also claims that self-regulation and responsible freedom must be encouraged from infancy onward. She shows that the biological evolution is possible from the “right of the babies to be wanted
babies”. Eva Reich writing from her vast experience traveling around the world, brings hope that is possible to change how the world works when childbirth education available to all expectant
parents.
In her article Reich was right: self regulation from Wilhelm Reich to Contemporary applied Neuroscience Jacqueline Carleton explores the
relevance of Reich’s thought, in special his basic principle of self regulation, to contemporary neuroscientific research and to neuroscientifically-based treatments of trauma. She presents an
interesting bridge between the pioneer ideas of Reich and the recent researches of neuroscience and neuropsychoanalysis.
The article Doing Effective Body Psychotherapy without Touch: The process of Re-embodiment by Courtenay Young, presents an overview of Body
Psychotherapy according of Neuroscience, Anthopology, Psychosocial, Cultural images, Transitional objects, narrative therapy and body images, He explores and deepens the concepts of embodiment and
re-embodiment. In this article Courtenay advises about the indiscriminated use of touch without a carefully ethical posture adequate to the real necessities of the client and as he states “we
don’t touch because we have learnt about touch and the effects of touch and because we can now achieve almost exactly the same effects in different ways, if needed, without touch. We can only now
work without touch because we have worked extensively with touch; maybe we have embodied touch sufficiently so that we can touch our clients differently, without touching them physically”.
Courtenay emphasizes the importance of therapeutic alliance and the quality of emotional attachment between client and therapist for an effective benefit of therapy.
In her article Femininity, Gender and Essence in Body-Psychotherapy: reflections on theory, clinical and teaching experience, Liliana
Acero presents a critical review of how women and female sexuality have been dealt within and outside neoreichian psychotherapy. She argues that, the absence of a clear use of a Gender Theory has
biased theoretical formulations, research and practice even neoreichian psychotherapy. Some aspects of contemporary psychology views on these topics are outlined and conclude with examples on Latin
American cultural and social researches on women’s social behaviour.
Systemic psychotherapy integrated with individual somatic Biosynthesis psychotherapy is presented by Esther Frankel in her article Systemic
Intervention in Biosynthesis: How to work in the relational field with families. With a personal introduction to the systemic theme, Esther writes about her own process of healing and shows from her
clinical experiences how the systemic and individual somatic psychotherapy are complementary. Theoretical links based on the Biosynthesis Life Fields, and field of intentionality model are shown in a
practical session with family constellation.
The book Psychothérapie Corporelles, Fondements et Methodes, by Michel Heller is reviewed by Jerome Liss. The feeling that we are
returning to ancient origins of body awareness, and therefore the Western history of Freud, Reich, Lowen and Boadella, is seen as coming from deeper roots. Especially interesting is the presentation
of Darwinian notions regarding the evolution of the body and emotions and Cannon’s work regarding homeostasis. As pointed by Jerome the understanding of the basic message of this book is
essential for body psychotherapists.
David Boadella reviews the book The Hill Speaks by the poet Elsa Corbluth. As David comments: this new collection may sound local, but is
quite global in scope. For Elsa a landscape on earth is an opening to a landscape of the heart. Whether it is a flower, a tree, a rock, or a mountain, she presents this from her artistic vision as a
bridge between her vision of the world of nature, where even hills have a voice and can speak, and the inner passions of being human. The book is full of breath-taking currents that lead us into worlds
of myth and legend, or back to solid earth with a bump.
The new book of Pim van Lommel, Consciousness without end, is reviewed by David Boadella. This book presents a deep study of the
near-death experiences and consciousness. Van Lommel, who was for 26 years a cardiologist at a hospital in Arnhem, Holland, concludes that consciousness is not produced by the brain, but acts through
the brain, and is trans-somatic, in the sense that is not locally dependent on the life processes of the body.
The book is supported by over 450 detailed footnotes, and 360 major references to
neurological, biological, quantum-physical, psycho-energetic and philosophical sources. Lommel’s detailed but panoramic survey of the field of consciousness beyond the brain and the body, is a
masterpiece of clinical, scientific and cultural research.
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