Orgasmic potency
The term orgasmic potency was introduced to psychoanalysis by the Freud student Wilhelm Reich in the mid-1920s .
Definitions
“By orgastic potency we will understand the ability of a person to achieve a satisfaction that is adequate to the respective congestion of libido ; also the ability to be able to achieve this satisfaction far more frequently than to be subject to the disturbances of the genitality which occasionally disturb the orgasm even in the relatively healthiest. The orgasmic potency comes about under certain conditions that are only found in people who are able to enjoy and perform; in neurotic people they are absent or only inadequately given. "
In the glossary for his "scientific autobiography", which was first published in English in 1942, Reich defines as follows:
Orgasmic potency: Essentially the ability to surrender completely to the involuntary convulsion of the organism and to completely discharge the sexual excitement at the climax of the sexual act. It is always absent from neurotics. It presupposes the genital character, i.e. the lack of pathological character and muscular armor . The concept is largely unknown. Orgasmic potency is usually not differentiated from erective and ejaculative potency, both of which are, however, only a prerequisite for orgasmic potency. "
The concept of orgastic potency
Freud's assumption about the libido was that the primary function of the "neuron system" was to dissipate energy immediately and completely and the secondary function was to store energy in certain neurons and neuron systems. Freud assumed that disorders of the psyche arise from preventing the free discharge of this libidinal energy in childhood, for example through moral prohibitions on certain pleasurable actions, overprotective or excessively strict behavior on the part of parents, etc.
In clinical work with his patients, Reich found that all neurotics appeared to have a disorder of sexual experience and behavior. He did not define such a disorder of the orgasm as a pure disorder of the ability to experience an orgasm, as in the usual definition (for example Kinsey in the Kinsey report ), but rather on the basis of the sensitivity during the entire sexual act. In a speech to the Psychoanalytical Congress in Salzburg ( 1924 ) he described orgasmic potency as the ability “to surrender to the currents of biological energy without inhibition”, the ability “to completely discharge all pent-up sexual excitement through involuntary, pleasurable contractions of the body. “For example, Reich assumes that a man can achieve an ejaculation at the climax (“ acme ”) in the course of an erection, but still feels subjectively little and locally limited arousal. On the other hand, before, during and after the sexual act, both sexes may lack “deep” sensations due to internal or external disorders, for example because they were excessively distracted by neurotic dynamics, strong thoughts, or, for example, tried too hard to be “good” or to satisfy the partner. Apart from temporary impairments, the orgasmic potency would be regarded as limited or absent if the organism does not experience or cannot experience the involuntary nature and the flow that encompasses the entire body at the peak of arousal (= orgastic impotence). The chronic sexual congestion resulting from orgastic impotence appears in the neurotic as both the cause and the maintenance mechanism of the neurosis. It drives current conflicts in such a way that earlier, childlike (oedipal) conflicts are re-fueled and the (already weakened) orgasmic potency is weakened by the additional neurotic inhibition. The concept of orgasmic potency is a clinical concept and is connected with the way the organism behaves and experiences it and can only be used meaningfully in this context. There is a risk of seeing it as a valuation, but with which it cannot fulfill its original task.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wilhelm Reich: The function of the orgasm. On psychopathology and the sociology of sex life. Leipzig / Vienna / Zurich: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag 1927, p. 18. Reich retained this definition in the revised version of the book (1944), only changed it a little stylistically. Cf. Wilhelm Reich: Genitality in the theory and therapy of neurosis. Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch 1982, p. 30
- ↑ Wilhelm Reich: The function of the orgasm. Basic sex-economic problems of biological energy. Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch 1969, p. 347 (Warning: the book only has the upper title in common with the book from 1927. - The definition text has been specified here after the original English edition from 1942)
- ^ Wilhelm Reich: Character analysis. Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch 1970, p. 166f.