The Spanish School of Reichian Therapy

(ES.TE.R)

The Spanish School of Reichian Therapy (ES.TE.R) was legally recognized in 1987, and among its goals are the formation of Body Psychotherapists and reichian specialists (Vegeto Therapy – Orgone Therapy). Another goal of the school is to spread the knowledge about orgonomy and its applications in education, medicine, ecology, urbanism, biophysics, etc. and thus contribute to increase the knowledge as well as the means for a better development and well-being of the human being. In this task the school counts on specialists of other models as well as on other Spanish and international schools. By means of in depth studies of the laws of orgonomy and the consequences of its permanent interaction with the physical and social environment, we can increase the understanding of the human nature and be able to prevent disturbing elements of the functionality and health of the human being.

This holistic vision of health, where the psychopathology is interlaced with other human and scientific disciplines, implies a particular formation that it is characterized by its multi disciplinary nature, resulting from our clinical and prophylactic work as a team. And although we, during the formation, strongly insist on fomenting the critical spirit of the students, facilitating the sources for them to learn about other models and techniques, may they be historical, present-day or in the vanguard, we consider ourselves as being inside the new ecological paradigm, based on the original contributions by Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957).

Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) was a psychiatrist and an expert in sexology who stood out because of his technical contributions to psychoanalysis, being a teaching member of the Berlin Institute. During the 1940’s in the Nordic countries and later in the United States, where he had arrived as a refugee from the nazism, he developed his own clinical and psychotherapeutic method - incorporating emotional, somatic and neuromuscular aspects to psychoanalysis. This methodology, first called Character Analytic Vegeto-Therapy, was later defined as Orgone Therapy as Dr. Reich started to include functional and psychosomatic diseases from the perspective of the disturbance of the bioenergetic pulsation. All the now-days body therapies and psychotherapies arise from this base, which has also had a great influence in the development of new tendencies such as the gestalt therapy, social psychiatry and sexology or some psychoanalytic tendencies.

Seen from the perspective of our model, the fundamental causes of disease and suffering are social and therefore should be fought through preventive actions on environmental, social and child ecology. In spite of this, we still considered that the function psychotherapy is essential in a general way because of its way of understanding the doctor-patient relationship, and in particular because of its clinical efficiency using human communication and expression in its widest sense within the psychotherapeutic setting. Dr. W. Reich achieved his work in a moment of maturity of the psychotherapeutic methodology, developing an integrated and vanguardist line of action that we post-reichians have deepened and matured.

The Spanish school grew out of the Scuola Europea di Orgonoterapia (S.E.Or.) that was founded in the 70’s by Federico Navarro and Piero Borrelli, who were disciples of Ola Raknes, one of the closest of W. Reich’s collaborators in Europe. In 1982, being Xavier Serrano a member of the S.E.OR., he and a small group of professionals organized in Spain the first formation courses and didactic analyses in that country. This initiative culminated later with in the formation of the ES.TE.R

The ES.TE.R, whose history is particularly influenced by the contributions of Federico Navarro – one of its first teachers- has its own clinical and educational identity within the post-reichian movement, i.e. a structural diagnosis (D.I.D.E.), a methodology for therapy groups in Vegeto-Therapy, and the Brief Character Analysis Therapy (PBC), all developed by Xavier Serrano. The school also has its own working methodology on prophylaxis created by M. S. Pinuaga, that ranges from the prenatal stage to pregnancy. Within the Orgonomy project, in a work applied to psychosis and somatic biopathies developed by M. Montero-Ríos, M. Redón and M. García, we also count on converging tools such as Audio Psycho Phonology, Reich’s "T test", the Or.Ac (Orgone accumulator), acupuncture and others.

The Spanish School is member of most of the main international orgonomy, body therapy and sexology associations as well as of the main psychotherapy associations. It is a founding member of the Spanish Federation of Associations of Psychotherapists (F.E.A.P.), an organism that works for the homologation of the psychotherapist professional diploma within the Spain and Europe where there are common criteria between all associated members. These criteria are based both on clinical experience and on the way of acquiring the knowledge i.e. through the personal analysis of future psychotherapists, clinical supervision and case seminars both of which are fundamental elements that cannot be found in the classical academic places, and that are accompanied by specific and general courses in the model represented by the particular schools or associations.

Our Didactic Formation Project is multidisciplinary because, as Dr. Reich stated, with "the orgonomy, the rigid fence that separated the different scientific fields has been broken". Our goal is to set a new Reichian Paradigm and to spread the knowledge of its contents and meaning in participation with the students, making sure that it is done with a critical mind and without fanatism. This is why some of the topics are studied using at the same time the lecture of chosen comparative texts the sum of which provide the students with a bibliography that helps them understand both the interaction with other holistic disciplines and the influences or differences with other scientific paradigms. We also introduce the students into the way our School works and the theoretical ground it stands that includes its own particularities within the Reichian Paradigm, giving them the possibility to acquire new knowledge as well as the choice of joining our team in the future.

To be a member of our School as an Orgonomist (specialized in education, prophylaxis, biophysics, etc.) or as an orgone therapist, the candidate must do the basic and specialized courses that appears in this pamphlet, have a university degree, have made his or her personal analysis with a qualified orgone therapist. If the goal is to become an orgone therapist, one has to add the person’s control analysis and the case supervision, and if the goal is to be an orgonomist, the supervision of his or her speciality.

Formation in body psychotherapy, orgonomy and Post-reichian clinical applications

Clinical reichian oriented Body Psychotherapists and Orgonimists:

- 600 hours (4 years plus the personal analysis)

Orgone therapists and specialists in post-reichiana clinic:

- 800 hours (6 years plus the personal analysis).

With the auspice and recognition of:

- The Spanish federation of Associations of Psychotherapists (F.E.A.P.)

- The International Federation of Orgonomic Colleges I.F.O.C.)

- The European Association of Body Psychotherapy (E.A.B.P.)

- The Spanish federation of Sexology Societies (F.E.S.S.)

- The European Federation of Sexology (E.F.S.)

 

Didactic Director: Xavier Serrano Hortelano.

Responsible of education: Manuel Redón Blanch (Valencia and Barcelona); Maria Montero-Ríos Gil (Valencia), Jose Antonio Larraza Razkin (Pamplona), Juan Antonio colmenares Gil (Madrid).

Teaching staff: The ES.TE.R teaching staff plus collaborators and specialists of other European and International Schools of Psychotherapy (Federico Navarro; Markus Valimaki.; Mª Beatriz De Paula; Gino Ferri; Clorinda Lubrano-Kotoulas; Bjorn Blumenthal; Humberto Liberati...)

Within the scope of the prophylactic assistance, the school works on the one hand on the socio-cultural level favouring a free sexuality, and on the other, on the specific work with children as well as with the family and educational systems within the frame of the ecology of human systems.

•   Sexological socio-cultural means.

•   Prenatal attendance during the pregnancy in individual or groups sessions.

•   Orgonomic attendance in childbirth.

•   Supervision of the maturity process in the newly born and older children in order to strengthen the development of their self-regulation. The work is done through observation and direct interaction with the child, as well as through psychotherapeutic assistance or through the necessary psycho pedagogical information for the family system.

•   With the Orgonomic Biophysical Investigation we try to validate the experiments made by W. Reich and his collaborators on the orgone energy using tools and means that are mope up to date. We also try to improve the instrumental means that were used.

Finally, within the Socio-cultural Intervention and in collaboration with other social associations and movements ours praxis is based on the following elements:

•   Sexological and Socio cultural activities.

•   Free periodic conferences and participation in round tables and debates on our premises as well as outside them .

•   Our public Orgonomy library that contains the complete works of W. Reich as well as all the world-wide magazines of Orgonomy, among others

Our own publishing house: PUBLICATIONS ORGON, C.B.

•   Books; Videos; and the magazine "Energy, character and society" published since 1982.

Director-Didacta of the ES.TE.R