Melanie, 41, is an active, vibrant, heterosexual woman with an abundance of energy coursing through her body. She has had a successful career as an executive and is financially secure. In spite of her career success, she suffers from debilitating anxiety that manifests in compulsive nervous habits, for example, chewing her nails or obsessively twisting her long auburn hair.  Her defensive style of laughing over everything, entertaining with a dramatic flair coupled with a chattery superficiality, leads her down an empty path. She focuses on her appearance and has a seductive flair obvious to those around her to the detriment of developing depth. Melanie over-exercises and is hyper busy; these character patterns are wearing thin internally and with her friends and colleagues. She lacks a central core, is suggestible, and can be easily influenced. She stands out as attractive and charming, yet embodies a sense of frantic frenzy that bubbles beneath the surface.

As she moves into her 40’s, aging issues are surfacing. She is in a transition from the young, driven woman climbing the ladder of success to one that is crossing over to critical junctures that are underdeveloped. She is externalized and has little connection with her interior. Melanie’s character patterns are no longer functional.

Reich’s character type typology gives us a map of how developmental passages combine with nature and nurture to influence formation of our defensive structures and, over time, define our consistent way of being. This system of organizing character types is functional in that it does not pigeonhole people in a black and white way. Most people fit into a defined character type with some consistency, yet we are also all unique, therefore adding shading to an individual’s description. Reich’s character typology creates an elegant map that correlates with his schema of body armoring. This is a comprehensive and integrated approach to the mind/body: the character types organize the body structure and vice versa, affecting the entirety of the body, including the autonomic nervous system.

In classical analytic theory, it is understood that development is a complex interaction between our genetic, energetic template combined with early attachment progress, family dynamics, external situations (i.e. war, death, relocation, medical issues, etc.) and other influences that effect how our lives progress. Reich wove all these factors together and defined the inevitable fixations and resulting armoring as they occur during various developmental stages. This tapestry defines how and where the energy can get concentrated or blocked. Symptoms occur when there is blockage at various points of development.