Quotes by Alexander Lowen

About Alexander Lowen:

Alexander Lowen was an American physician and psychotherapist. A student of Wilhelm Reich in the 1940s and early 1950s in New York, he developed bioenergetic analysis, a form of mind-body psychotherapy, with his then-colleague, John Pierrakos (February 8, 1921 – February 1, 2001). Lowen was the founder and former executive director of the International Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis in New York City.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

There are many roles that people play and many images that they project. There is, for example, the "nice" man who is always smiling and agreeable. "Such a nice man," people say. "He never gets angry." The facade always covers its opposite expression...

Alexander Lowen

While the repression of a memory is a psychological process, the suppression of feeling is accomplished by deadening a part of the body or reducing its motility so that feeling is diminished. The repression of the memory is dependent upon and related...

Alexander Lowen

Since the experience is different for each individual, the tension will reflect that experience. In some persons the whole lower half of the body is relatively immobilized and held in a passive state; in others the muscular tensions are localized in ...

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...

Alexander Lowen

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 t...

Alexander Lowen

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

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. ...

Alexander Lowen

It is a grave injustice to a child or adult to insist that they stop crying. One can comfort a person who is crying which enables him to relax and makes further crying unnecessary; but to humiliate a crying child is to increase his pain, and augment ...

Alexander Lowen

We believe it is bad or dangerous to be carried away by our emotions. We admire the person who is cool, who acts without feeling.

Alexander Lowen

Because we are afraid of life, we seek to control or master it.

Alexander Lowen

The modern individual is committed to being successful, not to being a person. He belongs rightly to the 'action generation' whose motto is 'do more but feel less.'

Alexander Lowen

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 transcen...

Alexander Lowen

Author Bio

  • NameAlexander Lowen
  • DescriptionAmerican psychotherapist
  • BornDecember 23, 1910
  • DiedOctober 28, 2008
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPsychotherapist; Psychiatrist