Growing Up In The Orgone Box: Secrets of a Reichian Childhood

By Malcolm J. Brenner

Nowhere to hide! Wilhelm Reich was the 20th Century's maddest scientist, the godfather of the Sexual Revolution and the discoverer of "orgone energy." As a child of five, author Malcolm J. Brenner is sent to Dr. Albert Duvall, a sadistic "orgone therapist" and one of Reich's closest associates. Neither Reich nor Malcolm's parents suspect what ends up happening behind the locked door of Duvall's soundproof office. Frightening, funny, touching and raunchy, "Growing Up In The Orgone Box" is the true story of a small boy trying to cope with a slowly crumbling family and a world – he's told – that would never understand.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Malcolm J. Brenner
• Release date: Aug 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311516336

Malcolm J. Brenner

Malcolm J. Brenner was born in New Jersey in 1951. He attended public and private schools there and in Pennsylvania before entering New College of Florida in 1969, where some of the events on which "Wet Goddess" is based took place. Brenner has worked many jobs, including wilderness tour guide, photo lab owner and public relations officer. During the 1990's he covered the Navajo Nation and Zuni Pueblo as a reporter for border town newspapers in New Mexico. His hard-hitting investigative reporting, news photos and satirical columns won several regional awards. Now a freelance writer and photographer, Brenner lives in Port Charlotte, Florida. He recently published "Mel-Khyor: An Interstellar Affair," a science-fiction novel about a woman's protracted experience with a crashed alien and its effects on her later life.

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Foreword

By Hugh R. Brenner, CRNP

My brother Malcolm J. Brenner and I were raised in a household where our upbringing was influenced by the psychological and social theories of Dr. Wilhelm Reich. In the first half of the 20th Century, Reich was a pioneer in psychiatry and social science. As his research into the application of orgone theory to natural sciences became increasingly controversial, he was increasingly branded as insane (1). Because of this, his significant contributions to modern culture, psychology and medicine have unfortunately gone largely unrecognized (2).

Reich found that the mind and body were not separate, but functioned as a whole. Reich thought that impairment in the ability to feel deeply (especially the inability to feel deep love) was a significant contributor to physical and emotional illness. He found that his patients with lots of bottled up thoughts and feelings had a diminished ability to feel deep and tender love, especially during sex and orgasm. He therefore used a patient’s ability to feel deep love during sex as a sort of marker of emotional health. His psychotherapy was directed at helping people learn to honestly deal with their thoughts and feelings by expressing bottled up emotions, negative thoughts and examining their resulting dysfunctional behaviors. These ideas were remarkable in the 1940’s and 50’s, but very fact that they don’t sound unusual today is, in part, a testament to Reich’s work.

Reich thought that people were essentially born healthy, but that dysfunctional families, schools and society encouraged emotional repression. He wanted to find out how to raise children to be emotionally free, that is, he wanted to find out how to prevent making children ill in the first place. The first step in this process was to find out specifically what factors pushed children toward emotional illness or health. In 1949 Reich started the Orgonomic Infant Research Center (a.k.a. the OIRC) under the direction of doctors Cott, Rafael, Albert Duvall, and Elsworth Baker. Reich’s intent was to have a team of nurses, teachers, parents and doctors study prenatal influences, how to improve the birth experience, and how to keep the children emotionally healthy through age six and up to puberty, if possible. Young parents gladly volunteered to be a part of the study. Our parents volunteered Malcolm, our sister Sally, and me for this research. The mothers were confidentially divided into an A group, comprised of the more emotionally healthy patients, and a B group, the less healthy group. Unknown to her, our mother was in the B group.

Reich’s ideas on childrearing were based on general principles that gave the child greater freedom to express and explore, ideas that were revolutionary but untested. Our parents tried to raise us in a free and open manner. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. It would have been helpful to have parents who were consistently free and open; instead, our parents were intelligent and willing to explore, but not emotionally stable enough to be able to follow through with the philosophy they espoused. Like many of the patients who followed Reich’s work, our parents did so in a sort of worshipful way, as if Reich and the physicians trained by him could do no wrong. As you will see, this was a big mistake.

The OIRC soon fell apart, but the parents involved wanted their kids to continue in therapy, so a couple of the lead doctors from the OIRC established an independent children’s clinic, first in New York, then in New Jersey. We went to the New Jersey clinic. Unknown to Reich, one of the lead physicians was very screwed up.

By the mid 1990’s, I was very involved in clinical orgonomy. It was about that time that Malcolm reported to me that he had been terribly abused by Dr. Albert Duvall. I was at first skeptical of my brothers report, but it did explain some elements of his behavior. I was still (like our parents), under the delusion that all orgonomists were by definition emotionally healthy individuals who would be beyond such sick and reprehensible behavior. Had Malcolm’s memory fragments been the only evidence of abuse, I might have chalked it up to a recovered memory syndrome. With some research my brother found other people who had disturbingly similar reports. I then conducted my own research and found that the orgonomist who worked near Duvall in Los Angeles had seen numerous former patients of Duvall’s, many of whom reported various grossly inappropriate doctor-patient abuses and boundary violations. (That orgonomist told me she had at the time reported this to the then-president of the American College of Orgonomy, Dr. Elsworth Baker, a close friend of Duvall’s. Dr. Baker took no action against Duvall, as far as she could tell.)

As I realized that Malcolm’s report was essentially accurate, I was devastated and, in retrospect, thankfully disillusioned. When I presented my findings to the Institute for Orgonomic Science, we were deeply shaken. (Some of the older members were not so surprised. Said my teacher, Dr. Morton Herskowitz, I never liked Duvall. Now I know why).

After much tumultuous debate, I decided to stay involved in orgonomy because of the extraordinary effect the therapeutic process had on me. I had seen orgone therapy help people that were considered hopeless. I had also seen enough important evidence in some of Reich’s work that I believed it deserved further unbiased inquiry. I came to the opinion that the work of Wilhelm Reich was independent of the personality of Wilhelm Reich or any of his associates, and given the evidence, I decided not to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

In many ways, Malcolm and I wound up on two sides of the same coin. Malcolm’s experience led him to frustration and a generalized hatred of orgonomy. My experience with my parents was somewhat softer. My experience with psychiatric orgone therapy was intensely moving and helpful. After my graduate training as a psychiatric advanced practice nurse, I joined The Institute for Orgonomic Science and became a psychiatric orgonomist. (Please note, I speak here as Malcolm’s brother, not as a representative of the Institute for Orgonomic Science).

In my several decades of work in psychiatry I have not found any other psychotherapeutic modality as powerful, although I note that any modality is only as good as its practitioner. Aside from Dr. Duvall (whom I don’t remember), the therapists who treated me were caring, astute and very aware, helping me open my emotional, physical and spiritual awareness in myriad ways.

Naturally, I have an interest in an accurate portrayal of orgonomy. There has been a long history of unfair and distorted reporting of Reich’s work in the media, misrepresentations that continue to this day. As Malcolm explained to me, his descriptions of his terrible childhood experiences with Dr. Duvall were reconstructions based on emotional impressions left on him as a child. With a few exceptions of some particularly terrible episodes, they are not exact word for word memories of his experiences, but more episodic memories intermingled with the subjective impressions of a young boy. This blurring of memory of trauma is a common phenomenon, even in adults experiencing trauma; the mind tries to shut out the pain of the event and the survival instinct tries to remember.

Even considering the fact that this is not a literal playback of Duvall’s actions and words, Malcolm’s experience still represents a hideous betrayal of the patient-physician relationship. The events described in this book (and by other former patients of Dr. Duvall) describe various cruel distortions of psychiatric orgone therapy. The abusive techniques and methods that were reportedly used by Duvall form an excellent reminder that any tool can be used to build or destroy. The question that bugs me is, how did Duvall slip by Reich’s notice? (3)

I know of no reports of Reich himself ever mistreating children. To the contrary, he was reportedly gentle and respectful with them. Reich’s daughter Eva said she based her therapeutic model, Gentle Bioenergetics, on watching her father work gently with infants and small children. Given the perverse twist that Dr. Duvall and some of his peers gave Wilhelm Reich’s work, I can only imagine that Reich has been spinning in his grave, along with my parents and the parents of many others.

When Malcolm asked me if I thought if this book portrayed our childhood family accurately, I didn’t know how to answer him. I have since realized that this book is about a family we shared, but just as two people may hear the same song, each is affected differently. We had two families with the same names and faces, but I heard a different song. The day our mother died, Malcolm seemed pleasantly relieved. I now know why. This book is a report of what Malcolm’s experience was, not mine. Sometimes I recognize my family, and sometimes I don’t.

I am very proud of Malcolm’s courageously honest book. In it he speaks his truth as best as he knows how. This book is my brother’s song, it is a little fragment of the song he sings every day. As a musician, I know that the magical thing about songs is, once they’ve been sung, they end. I hope that the telling of his story brings him some peace.

Malcolm, thank you for illuminating my illusion.

With much love, your brother,

Hugh Brenner, CRNP,
family psychiatric nurse practitioner

President of the Institute for Orgonomic Science

May 13, 2014

1. Inspired by the sexual energy theory of Sigmund Freud, Reich was trying to see if there was a measurable elemental life force (similar in some ways to the concept of chi in Asian traditional medicine). His discovery of what he called orgone energy became the focus of his work, which he then called orgonomy. He modified his prior psychological and medical theories to encompass orgone theory. In subsequent research, he found ways to focus and concentrate the energy, using devices he called orgone accumulators, to explore treating many physical diseases. Orgonomy and its association with concepts of sexual freedom was where Reich’s work became increasingly controversial. Out of the mainstream of science, his ideas became twisted in the media, where he was called crazy and a sex maniac. After investigation by the FDA, Reich was found guilty of shipping unapproved medical devices across state lines. His books were banned and burned by the FDA. Soon thereafter he was jailed, and died in Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in 1957.

2. In the early 20th Century, Reich established clinics to make contraception available to the common people, and is recognized as one of the first social workers. He was the one of the first western physicians to recognize that the mind and body are functionally inseparable; that what happens in the body is incorporated into the mind, and visa versa. He also was the first to come up with a reasonable physical explanation of how the mind and body interact, via the autonomic nervous system. Reich’s massive amount of work became the underpinning of much of today’s psychological, medical, and sociological science. 


3. Apparently, Reich was in many ways naive. This does not excuse Reich, for if you bite off more than you can chew you should not be surprised when you choke, but I have some thoughts on the matter. Having fled the Nazis in Europe and still new to the USA, Reich needed associates. Dr. Elsworth Baker was one of Reich’s first supporters in the USA and brought to Reich many of the American physicians he worked with, including Baker’s close friend, Dr. Albert Duvall. Several of Reich’s associates reported in Reich an almost child-like innocence. We find a quote from Albert Duvall: ...Dr. Reich, despite his genius (or as a parallel to it), often exhibited ingenuousness and naiveté. (Journal of Orgonomy, The Wilhelm Reich Award, Vol. 6, No. 2, p.145). From Dr. Elsworth Baker: His ‘Character Analysis’ is a classic on the understanding of human structure, yet he would be easily fooled by people. At times, it seemed, he was unable to grasp the simplest explanation, but he could make clear the most difficult problems to anyone. (Wilhelm Reich, Elsworth F. Baker, M.D., reprinted from the Journal of Orgonomy, Volume 1, 1968, published by The American College of Orgonomy, [http://www.orgonomy.org/articles/Baker/Wilhelm_Reich.html]. Reich left it to others to formalize the orgonomic treatment of children. A very few of these physicians were cruel, some simply used the same strong therapeutic techniques on children that were used on adults, and some figured out that children are not small adults. Children’s defenses often melt with the right gentle words or touch. More often than not, children’s symptoms are a reflection of parental discord; in those instances, when the parents get better, the child’s symptoms resolve. I cannot speak for every orgonomist, but in the Institute for Orgonomic Science when orgone therapy is indicated for a young child, myself and the other board-certified child and adolescent psychiatric orgonomists use creative variations on play therapy based on orgonomic principals. For more about the history of this episode and Reich’s ideas on child rearing I suggest reading Children of the Future, a compilation of articles by Wilhelm Reich. To learn more about contemporary orgonomy, further information, references and links, go to the website for the Institute for Orgonomic Science.

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My mother, Josephine, on the New Jersey beach, early 1950’s.

Chapter 1:

A Shark in the Lake

Daddy, why is the sky blue?

My father reclines on a bench at Cheesequake State Park and takes a drag off his Chesterfield. When he exhales, a cloud of white smoke billows from his nostrils and rises slowly into the New Jersey sky, dispersing as it joins the fluffy clouds overhead. For a few moments he seems lost in thought, and I wonder if he’s heard me. Maybe I didn’t speak loudly enough, I think, and I am about to ask him again when he responds.

Well, Mac, there’s two answers, he says, the conventional one and the one we think is right. Which one do you want?

Both, I say, a little vexed. Why are the answers to my questions always so complicated?

Okay. My father sits up and engages my attention. The conventional explanation is – you know how white light is made of many colors, right? You see that in a rainbow, or when light is bent by passing through a glass of water.

Of course I know that! My father has pointed out the rainbows to me. Everybody knows that, even babies!

Good. The conventional explanation is, the molecules of oxygen in the air scatter the blue light, so it’s bouncing all around, while the other colors come straight through. And that’s what some people say makes the sky look blue. He takes another drag off his cigarette, then a pretty woman in a red bathing suit catches his eye. As she strolls by, engrossed in conversation with a friend, he nods and smiles in a friendly way. She doesn’t even notice him. My question, I fear, has been forgotten.

"What’s the other explanation, Daddy? The one we believe?"

Well, you know about orgone energy, don’t you? I’ve told you about that.

I nod. And that, my father has made clear, is something that not everybody knows about. Only us, and a few others like us. It’s not something we talk about with strangers.

Orgone energy is everywhere, but it’s particularly strong around things that are living and growing, like plants and animals, and there’s a lot of them on this planet, aren’t there?

I nod again. Not like the other planets, at least the ones we can see with our earth-bound telescopes. Not like the airless moon or ruddy Mars. Not at all like Mercury, which is too hot, and not a bit like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, which are all too cold. Maybe a little like Venus, but we can’t see Venus because of the clouds, so we don’t know what’s going on there.

Dr. Reich says orgone energy has a bluish color, and we’ve got lots of it in the atmosphere because there’s lots of life on this planet, and that’s why the sky is blue.

My father, in my presence at least, always refers to Reich by his medical title with a tone of respect. My father is a big strong man, smart and brave because he fought in The War, although he says he didn’t kill anybody, he just kept other people from being killed by running a radar unit. But even he speaks respectfully of Dr. Reich, so Dr. Reich must be an even bigger and stronger man! I wonder what he is like, and if I will ever get to meet him. But maybe he would be scary like Dr. Duvall is, and I let the thought go. Right now, my father is a little distracted, watching the woman in the red bathing suit and her friend. They have turned on the gravel path and are coming back our way, still talking, still oblivious to his masculine attentions.

So Daddy, which is it? I ask. What do you believe?

My father takes the last puff from his Chesterfield, snubs the butt and field-strips it, sprinkling the shredded tobacco on the ground, rolling up the paper between his fingers and tossing it away, an old Army habit.

I think it’s a little of both, actually, he says, relaxing against the back of the bench and crossing his legs, feigning indifference. It works, the women stop – to admire me.

What a cute little boy! the one in the red bathing suit exclaims. Feeling shy, I back away. Don’t be frightened, honey! How old is he? she asks my father.

She could ask me, I think annoyedly.

Four, my father says proudly.

Daddy, I’m FIVE now, I remind him. Doesn’t he remember my birthday was just last month? I got a toy pop gun, a Davy Crockett hat and everything!

What’s your name? the woman in the blue swimsuit asks, bending down, but she frightens me. She is wearing dark sunglasses that mirror my reflection. Her teeth are crooked and her breath smells like the sour milk Mommy once poured on my breakfast cereal by mistake when the old refrigerator wasn’t working right. I slink closer to my father and cling to his hairy, tree-like leg, sulking at the unwarranted intrusion into our time together. He reaches down and puts a hand on my shoulder. For him, the gesture seems almost unconscious, but I am very much aware of it. It means protection.

I bury my face in his leg.

What’s the matter? Red says.

I just asked him his name! Is he shy? Blue asks.

A little, yes… Mac?

At his call I look up. Godlike, he towers above me.

It’s okay, you can tell her your name. Let go now. Gently, he unwraps my arms from his thigh.

At his insistence I turn and face my interrogators. Blue, the ugly one, is bent over at the waist, trying to bring her face down to my level and not quite succeeding. She is fat and her bulbous buttocks are thrust out behind her, drawing stares from the men up and down the beach and reproachful slaps or elbows in the ribs from their wives or girlfriends, but Blue seems oblivious to the commotion. (I don’t remember her breasts, maybe they were below my eye level; in any case I was too old to need them and too young to admire them, so why should I have noticed them?)

But her friend, Red, the one my father was watching, has crouched down low and gracefully, like a big cat, and brought her face down to mine. It is a pretty face, and seen at my level not so intimidating. Like me, she has some freckles.

Tell me your name, honey.

A reassuring squeeze from my father’s hand. (I am sure he was admiring the view!)

Mal… But I choke up.

Go ahead, Red prompts, smiling sweetly. Her teeth are fine and white. The two women seem so different. What are they doing together? But I have to tell her my name. Daddy says it is all right.

Mal… colm. Malcolm. I’m Malcolm.

MALCOLM! Well, isn’t that an INTERESTING name! Blue fairly shouts it down the beach. Not your common old name like John or Tom or Fred or Howard! And not a Biblical name either like David or Aaron or Peter or Saul! She stands and flashes those crooked teeth at my father. I feel him retreat ever so slightly, but Blue doesn’t notice.

Wasn’t Malcolm a character in MacBeth? Red asks. Instantly, my father’s body readjusts, leaning forward slightly. He is not aware that I feel his subtle attitude changes, but I do.

Hmmm… My father’s free left hand strokes the weekend stubble on his chin, another unconscious gesture. You know, you’re right, I think he was. The woman beams, becoming even more pretty. I wish she was my mommy, and not Mommy.

Sometimes Mommy is pretty, but not like Red. Sometimes Mommy makes Daddy smile, but not so much these days. Mommy seems unhappy. She talks a lot about England, where she came from before she married Daddy. That was during The War. Daddy took her away from London, where her people were being bombed by the Germans, and brought her back to live with his family in New York City. For some reason, that made her unhappy.

But it’s okay, Malcolm was one of the good guys, my father adds knowingly, without quite seeming like a know-it-all. My wife gave him that name, she’s English. It figures.

So you married an English lassie? What’s wrong with us American gals? Red asks, winking.

Nothing at all, Daddy says, just not very many of you in London during the Blitz!

Oh, I see! Red returns her attention to me. Your mommy’s a war bride, Malcolm!

War bride? I do not like the sound of those words. Mommy and Daddy both say that war is terrible and bad and nasty and horrible. Neither of them has ever said anything good about war, except maybe that it brought them together, but that was it. War is all about killing and hurting and blowing things up, and Mommy is afraid we’re all going to get blown up in the next war.

But that’s not what I’m afraid of.

War bride makes it sound like there is something wrong with my mother, and that too is frightening.

The woman in the blue bathing suit straightens up with a grunt and rubs the small of her back. In the background, men’s gazes turn away, and up and down the beach marital harmony and connubial bliss are restored.

And where is little Malcolm’s mother now? Red asks.

My father nods toward the bathrooms. Taking Malcolm’s little brother to do his business. In fact, here she comes now, he adds, glancing over his shoulder.

Well, we have to be on our way, Red says. Nice meeting you, Malcolm. The two women continue their stroll, and my father watches them go. Moments later, my mother shows up, my little brother in tow.

Who were you talking to?

Just a couple of women who were passing by.

I don’t like it when you do that, Mil!

Do what?

Talk to strangers! What kind of example are you setting for Malcolm?

They were admiring him. (It did not occur to me at the time, of course, but now I realize what a brilliant piece of deflection that answer was. It had the added advantage of being true.)

Oh. Well. I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that. My mother is also proud of me, especially since she says she almost died giving birth to me. But I never think about that. Where’s Sally?

Swimming.

And you’re not watching her? My mother’s question also remarkably manages to be an accusation of neglect.

They have lifeguards here, Jo, I’m sure she’s fine.

How can you just let her wander off like that?

She’s not a baby any more, she’s almost thirteen.

Twelve, my mother corrects him. For a man who works with numbers, my dad gets our ages wrong a lot. But anything could happen to her here, you don’t know who’s in that crowd! My mother scans the lakeshore nervously.

DADDY! DADDY! At the sound of my sister’s voice both heads turn, and mine too. Only my baby brother, playing in the sand, seems unconcerned. My sister comes flying up the path from the lake, dripping wet. I can’t go swimming any more, she announces.

Why not? my father asks, What’s the matter?

They said there’s a shark in the water.

Oh my god, my mother exclaims, ’ere?

Who said that? my father demands.

They did. My sister waves her hand back toward the lake.

Who did?

Those boys! My sister points to a gaggle of scrawny teenage boys, most of them with crew cuts or flat tops. They are staring our way, laughing and punching each other on the arm, obviously very pleased with themselves.

That’s nonsense, my father says, this is a freshwater lake! You go back down there and tell those boys they’re full of beans.

But Mil, what if she’s right? my mother wants to know.

Look, Jo! My father beckons to the water where people are still playing, heedless of the danger. If there was some hazard, don’t you think the lifeguard would have pulled everybody out by now?

What if he didn’t see the shark?

There’s no shark!

How do you know?

This is a freshwater lake, and sharks only live in salt water!

My mother is stumped, but only for a moment. What if it swam in from the bay? What if it was following some fish upstream and it swam in from the bay just now? It could survive in fresh water for a little while, couldn’t it?

My father fairly bursts with exasperation. JO, THERE’S NO GODDAMN SHARK, he says, a little louder than necessary.

Heads turn in our direction. People say to each other in bewilderment, What was that he said about a shark?

You don’t have to shout it! my mother barks, I’m not deaf, you know! She pronounces it deef.

My father is about to rebut everything she has just said when my sister interjects, Daddy, can I have a dime?

My father actually seems grateful for her interruption, but my mother looks disappointed. My sister doesn’t notice either of them. What for? he asks.

I want to buy some ice cream.

My father reaches into the picnic basket and pulls out his wallet. He fishes out a dollar. Here, get us all some. What flavor do you want, Jo?

Well, I don’t know what they’ve got, do I, so how can I know what I want? And don’t send her by herself, she’ll be a bloody mess when she gets back and it will all be melted, you’ve got to go with her!

With a sigh, or maybe a grunt, my father heaves himself from the tattered old Army surplus olive drab wool blanket covering the Jersey beach sand and takes my sister’s hand. I’ll bring you back something.

What?

It’ll be a surprise.

I don’t like surprises! my mother shouts after him, but she is drowned out by the cawing of a nearby crow.

Then there is just me and my mother and my brother, still playing in the gray thick sand. Mommy watches the retreating backs of my father, holding my sister’s hand.

Honestly, I don’t know what’s gotten into ‘im, sending ‘er off alone like that, my mother says, either to me or to no one in particular. Anything could happen, there might be a pedophile lurking by the ice cream stand.

I know a lot of words, but not that one.

Mommy, what’s a pedophile?

A man who wants to ‘ave sex with children.

Daddy and Mommy say that sex is good, so this confuses me. And my mother is still dropping her aitches, so she is still upset at Daddy.

Why?

Why? ‘Ow should I know? Because ‘e’s a sick bastard who wants to take advantage of ‘em, I don’t know… Her voice trails off distractedly. Looking down the path, I see two men walking our way. One is short and fat, the other… when I look up at my daddy he looks like a god to me, but this man looks like a god just strolling our way. It is not so much that he is tall (although at six feet one inch he is) as that he has remarkable muscles: a huge chest with wide pectorals, a broad back, rippling abs, arms like thighs, thighs like tree trunks. Yet the whole look is sleek and clean, not like the over-defined, steroid-imbibing bodybuilders that will come later.

Ooooh, isn’t ‘e nice, I hear my mother murmur. "Wouldn’t you like to be like ‘im? You would, wouldn’t you, Mac?