Bioenergetics Quotes

“No one is exempt from the rule that learning occurs through recognition of error.”
― Alexander Lowen, Bioenergetics: The Revolutionary Therapy That Uses the Language of the Body to Heal the Problems of the Mind

“The primary nature of every human being is to be open to life and love. Being guarded, armoured, distrustful and enclosed is second nature in our culture. It is the means we adopt to protect ourselves against being hurt, but when such attitudes become characterological or structured in the personality, they constitute a more severe hurt and create a greater crippling than the one originally suffered.”
― Alexander Lowen, Bioenergetics: The Revolutionary Therapy That Uses the Language of the Body to Heal the Problems of the Mind

“Happiness is the consciousness of growth. [...] If my definition has validity, it suggests that most people come to therapy because they sense their growth has been arrested. Certainly many patients look to therapy to reinstitute the growth process. (33)”
― Alexander Lowen, Bioenergetics: The Revolutionary Therapy That Uses the Language of the Body to Heal the Problems of the Mind

“It is only by making the past alive again for a person that a true growth in the present is facilitated. If the past is cut off, the future does not exist.”
― Alexander Lowen, Bioenergetics: The Revolutionary Therapy That Uses the Language of the Body to Heal the Problems of the Mind

“The person senses what it feels like to be free from inhibitions. At the same time he feels connected and integrated – with his body and, through his body, with his environment. He has a sense of well-being and inner peace. He gains the knowledge that the life of the body resides in its involuntary aspect. […] Unfortunately these beautiful feelings do not always hold up under the stress of daily living in our modern culture. The pace, the pressure and the philosophy of our times are antithetical to life.”
― Alexander Lowen, Bioenergetics: The Revolutionary Therapy That Uses the Language of the Body to Heal the Problems of the Mind

“The ego exists as a powerful force in Western man that cannot be dismissed or denied. The therapeutic goal is to integrate the ego with the body and its striving for pleasure and sexual fulfilment.”
― Alexander Lowen, Bioenergetics: The Revolutionary Therapy That Uses the Language of the Body to Heal the Problems of the Mind

“Bioenergetics is an adventure in self-discovery. It differs from similar explorations into the nature of the self by attempting to understand the human personality in terms of the human body. Most previous explorations focused their investigations on the mind.”
― Alexander Lowen, Bioenergetics: The Revolutionary Therapy That Uses the Language of the Body to Heal the Problems of the Mind

“You will stay in therapy as long as you feel it is worth the time, effort and money you invest.”
― Alexander Lowen, Bioenergetics: The Revolutionary Therapy That Uses the Language of the Body to Heal the Problems of the Mind

“Therapy takes us backward into a forgotten past, but this was not a safe and secure time, else we would not have emerged from it scarred by battle wounds and armoured in self-defense.”
― Alexander Lowen, Bioenergetics: The Revolutionary Therapy That Uses the Language of the Body to Heal the Problems of the Mind