75 Quotes by Alexander Lowen

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.

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.

No one is exempt from the rule that learning occurs through recognition of error.

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)

Stepping out of one’s world or out of one’s habitual self is a transcendental experience. [...] If we seek transcendence, we may have many visions, but we will surely end where we started. If we opt for growth, we may have our moments of transcendence, but they will be peak experiences along the steady road to a richer and more secure self. (32-33)

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.

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.

And we need to know what it is to be human, if we are to avoid becoming narcissists.

Lo importante es sobrevivir y una persona tolerará el dolor y renunciará al placer para mantenerse viva.