Ola Raknes - From Psychology of Religion To Psychoanalysis - Energy- and Body-based Forms of Therapy - Character Analysis and Apprentice Therapy With Reich

Character Analysis and Apprentice Therapy With Reich

Shortly after Reich had arrived in Norway, he opened a seminar in character analysis. Raknes was admitted to this despite not having undergone any such analysis himself. He tried out the techniques that he learned on a couple of his patients, with fairly good results. In the fall of 1936 he asked if Wilhelm Reich would accept him for apprentice therapy, both because of personal problems and because he thought that Reich's therapeutic approach was far more efficient than the classical Freudian technique which he had applied so far. Reich was in doubt and felt that Ola Raknes was a bit old and too armored, but in the end he accepted. Ola Raknes was probably one of the first patients to whom Reich consistently applied his new technique, which he labeled characteranalytic vegetotherapy. Not surprisingly, due to Raknes' advanced age, the restructuring of his character, that is the apprentice therapy, was cumbersome and lasted for almost three years, three sessions a week. The response did not fail to appear. At times everything felt so destitute and hopeless that he doubted whether he would ever be able to do the work that he still believed he was created to do, in a way he himself would be content with – and if he couldn't manage that, there would be no reason to live even. But after a long period of time he finally began noticing that the energies started to make themselves felt; he started noticing what took place inside of his own organism, and what it would mean to be functioning freely. He was struck by the fundamental differences between characteranalytic vegetotherapy and traditional psychoanalysis. Even though he had read Reich's book on character analysis, and he had also applied the technique on his own patients, having the technique work on his own body was something altogether new. Compared to classical psychoanalysis, the technique was now extended to the interpretation of character expressions and bodily attitudes, and to working through somatical blockings through direct manipulation. (Raknes, 1959)