orgastic impotence

Neurotic disorder, according to Reich, was always based on a more or less pronounced "orgastic impotence".

Reich related orgastic potency and orgastic impotence to a, respectively, healthy and unhealthy sexual experience for the adult.

Many neurotics cannot achieve adequate discharge of their sexual energy through the sexual act. . . . According to Fenichel, an important concomitant of orgastic impotence is that these patients are incapable of love."

From a biological point of view the answer to this question is an unequivocal NO." However, a clinically grounded qualitative distinction between psychosexual maturity and immaturity was only introduced with Reich's concept orgastic potency vs. orgastic impotence (instead of vaginal vs. clitoral).