Pulsation: From Wilhelm Reich to Neurodynamic Psychotherapy

Wilhelm Reich identified pulsation as the basic life function, experienced most intensely in orgasm, and his therapy worked to dissolve emotional and physical blocks to full pulsation, through character analysis and a focus on the breathing. He also believed pulsation was a function of a universal life energy which he called orgone. This book examines Reich s work in the light of neuroscience and proposes that although pulsation is definitive of life, the concept of a specific life energy is unnecessary and mistaken. However the term orgone , though not as life energy , may add to a valid description of the cosmic ocean of equal-phase pulse waves within which the unequal-phase pulsation of life occurs. This book also proposes a neurodynamic psychotherapy (Alexander Luria s term) in which Reichian pulsation therapy can be integrated with neuroscience.