 After graduating in medicine from the University of Vienna in 1922 , Reich became deputy director of Freud 's outpatient clinic , the Vienna Ambulatorium . Described by Elizabeth Danto as a large man with a cantankerous style who managed to look scruffy and elegant at the same time , he tried to reconcile psychoanalysis with Marxism , arguing that neurosis is rooted in sexual and socio @-@ economic conditions , and in particular in a lack of what he called " orgastic potency . " He visited patients in their homes to see how they lived , and took to the streets in a mobile clinic , promoting adolescent sexuality and the availability of contraceptives , abortion and divorce , a provocative message in Catholic Austria . He said he wanted to " attack the neurosis by its prevention rather than treatment . " 
