From genius discovery to UFO battles: The man who found trauma in the body
Wilhelm Reich made one of psychology's greatest discoveries: The body remembers what the mind forgets. Trauma doesn't just live in thoughts and memories - it's held in muscle tension, breathing patterns, and physical armor that protects us from unbearable feelings.
Then he went completely insane.
This episode follows Reich's journey from Freud's most promising student to a paranoid exile shooting orgone energy at alien spacecraft. But here's the twist: His early insights about somatic trauma were revolutionary. They laid the foundation for every body-based therapy that actually works.
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You'll learn about:
Character armor: how the body holds emotional pain
The knife incident that got him expelled from psychoanalysis
Orgone energy, cloudbusters, and weather control experiments
Einstein's basement test that debunked Reich's cosmic theories
The FBI raid that destroyed his life's work
How his somatic discoveries live on in modern trauma therapy
Discover the untold story of how trauma therapy evolved from Freudian analysis to revolutionary body-based healing approaches that preceded "The Body Keeps the Score" by decades.
This evidence-based deep dive explores the pioneering work of Wilhelm Reich, Carl Jung, and Fritz Perls who discovered that trauma lives in the body long before modern neuroscience proved them right. Learn why your physical symptoms might be stored emotional memories and how the therapeutic revolution of the 1960s changed psychology forever.
What You'll Learn:
Why Reich was expelled from psychoanalytic institutes for discovering "character armor"
How Jung's archetypal psychology laid groundwork for modern therapy approaches
The real story behind Fritz Perls and the birth of Gestalt therapy
Why America abandoned somatic approaches for cognitive behavioral therapy
How trauma gets trapped in muscles, creating chronic tension and pain
The scientific evidence behind body-based trauma treatment
Perfect for: Mental health professionals, trauma survivors, psychology students, anyone interested in the history of psychotherapy, and those seeking alternatives to traditional talk therapy.
Evidence-Based Content: Drawing from peer-reviewed research, historical documents, and the foundational texts of somatic psychology, this episode traces the scientific evolution from Freudian psychoanalysis through modern neuroscience-backed trauma therapy.
Keywords: trauma therapy, somatic therapy, body keeps the score, Wilhelm Reich, Carl Jung, Fritz Perls, PTSD treatment, psychology history, mind-body connection, character armor, nervous system healing, experiential therapy, depth psychology
Hosted by experts in trauma-informed care with clinical experience in EMDR, brainspotting, somatic experiencing, and Jungian analysis.
Resources: Visit gettherapybirmingham.com for articles on somatic trauma mapping, Jungian therapy, and evidence-based body-centered healing approaches.
Discover the untold story of how trauma therapy evolved from Freudian analysis to revolutionary body-based healing approaches that preceded "The Body Keeps the Score" by decades.
This evidence-based deep dive explores the pioneering work of Wilhelm Reich, Carl Jung, and Fritz Perls who discovered that trauma lives in the body long before modern neuroscience proved them right. Learn why your physical symptoms might be stored emotional memories and how the therapeutic revolution of the 1960s changed psychology
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