Alexander Lowen

Dr. Alexander Lowen is an American psychotherapist born on December 23rd 1910 with New York. Disciple of Wilhelm Reich, it developed the bioenergetic theory, and founded the Institute for the bioenergetic Analyze.

Oldest of two newborns of Jewish parents having emigrated of Russia, it grows in an environment in which his/her parents disputed regularly. Its childhood had passed in the street to be devoted to plays of a physical nature, of which it will take as a starting point the years later for its therapeutic exercises. Its adolescence was solitary. Lowen obtained a diploma in science and businesses of the City College off New York , then its LLB and doctorate with the Brooklyn Law School .

In the years 1930 it practices the calisthénique one ( muscular reinforcement ), and is devoted to several sports. He is athletic director of camps of summer and is also interested in the Yoga, with the Eurhythmics of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze which supports " the movement of the body like expression to be it " and with the " relieving progressive" of Edmund Jacobson ( control of breathing ). It meets Reich in New York in 1940 and will be its pupil of 1940 until 1952. It is impassioned particularly for its theories relating to energies present in the body. It will continue of 1942 to 1945 a therapy with him before becoming in its turn therapeutist reichien. In 1951 it obtains a doctorate in medicine with the Université of Geneva.

In 1953, of return to the the United States, it joins two other followers of Reich, John Pierrakos and William Walling, and found l'" together; Institute for the Bioénergétique" Analysis; (Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis) in 1956.

It deviates then from the theories of Reich to develop its own bioenergetic design where " the energy process of the body determines what occurs in the spirit just like it determines what occurs in the corps." Its therapy consists in making circulate the “energies” blocked in the body through physical exercises or of breathing, which makes it possible to the patients to join again with their personality and the life of their body, like solving possible psychological neuroses. It is through the comprehension of the energy operation of the body that Lowen proposes a better life harmonizes some with oneself.

References

Dr. Lowen published 13 pounds during his career, among which the Language of the body in 1958, followed Amour and Orgasme (1965), the Treason of the body (1967), the Pleasure (1970), Bio-Energy (1975), Nervous breakdown and the body (1977), Fear Of living (1980), Narcissism (1984), Love, Sex and Your Heart (1988), the Spirituality of the Body (1990), the Love of life (1995) and " To honor the Body: the autobiography of Alexander Lowen, M.D. (2004).

Dr. Lowen currently lives and works in New Canaan, Connecticut, the United States.

Quotations

an alive body is a vibrating body. A fully alive body is able to completely feel the pleasures and the sorrows, the joys and the pains of the life.
We often make use of words to be able nothing to change. We feel safe as long as we can speak because to speak decreases the need to feel and to act.
" Throughout my therapies of the patients, I pass alternatively from the widening of the conscience on the level of the body to the widening of the conscience at the verbal level. "
" lived of a person is in her body, but the history conscious of its life is in its words. " (extracts of " Bio-Énergie" )

Sources

Honoring the Body, The Autobiography off Alexander Lowen, M.d. , ED. Bioenergetics Near, 2004
Discussion with Dr. Lowen
www.primaltherapy.com/GrandDelusions/

External bonds

International The Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis
New York Institute for Bionergetic Analysis
The Florida Society for Bioenergetic Analysis
Bioenergetics Close

Film

“With the risk of living. Alexander Lowen and its wife. ” of Philippe Girod.

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