Though Francis Israel Regardie (1907–1985) is best known for his writings on the Western magical/mystical system known as the Golden Dawn, that is not how he made his living. He was a Doctor of Chiropractic under which license he practiced the psychotherapeutic methods of Wilhelm Reich, M.D. (1897–1957).
Reichian Therapy was a revolutionary approach to dealing with psychological issues. Reich, who had once been an associate of Sigmund Freud, had developed important extensions to psychological theory and the therapy methods of the day. But in a clinical setting he and others were continually faced with the intractability of many patients against the therapeutic methods then in use. He came to believe that this "armoring" was not simply a "head issue," but was elaborated in actual physical armoring of the musculature. In time he developed a novel, and highly successful, approach to psychotherapy: rather than just talk with his patients, he manipulated and attacked the muscular armor directly. But today we see almost nothing of his methods except in Christopher Hyatt’s “Radical Undoing” and Alexander Lowen's "Bioenergetics".
First written in the 1950s and updated through the 1970s, this never-before-published tour de force provides a masterful description of both Reich’s theory and clinical practice. It is an indispensable tool for anyone interested in one of the most effective psychotherapeutic methods ever devised.
