 One of Reich 's first patients was Lore Kahn , a 19 @-@ year @-@ old woman with whom he had an affair . Freud had warned analysts not to involve themselves with their patients , but in the early days of psychoanalysis the warnings went unheeded . According to Reich 's diaries , Kahn became ill in November 1920 and died of sepsis after sleeping in a bitterly cold room she had rented as a place for her and Reich to meet ( both his landlady and her parents had forbidden their meetings ) . Kahn 's mother suspected that her daughter had died after a botched illegal abortion , possibly performed by Reich himself . According to Christopher Turner , she found some of her daughter 's bloodied underwear in a cupboard . 
