Bioenergetic Analysis
"Bioenergetics aims to help a person open his heart to life and love. This is no easy task. The heart is well protected in its bony cage, and the approaches to it are strongly defended both psychologically and physically. These defenses must be understood and worked through, if our aim is to be achieved. But if the objective is not gained, the result is tragic. To go through life with a closed heart is like taking an ocean voyage locked in the hold of the ship. The meaning, the adventure, and the excitement and the glory of living are beyond one's vision and reach." — Alexander Lowen, M.D. (Honoring the Body)
Bioenergetic Analysis (BA) is a specific form of body-psychotherapy – based upon the continuity between body and mind – rooted in the work of Wilhelm Reich (very close associate of Sigmund Freud) and founded by Alexander Lowen (a student of Wilhelm Reich). BA basically combines a bodily, analytic and relational therapeutic work, based upon an energetic understanding.
Bioenergetic Analysis helps to release chronic muscular tensions, manage affects, expand the capacity for intimacy, heal sexual difficulties and learn new, more fulfilling ways of relating to others. Tenderness, aggression, assertion – and their confluence in sexuality – are seen as core lifesaving forces. The therapeutic relationship provides a place of safety in which healing begins.
The therapist reads the body, resonates with its energy, feels the emotions, listens, hears and answers the words. The language of the body (posture/gesture, breathing, motility, expression) is on focus as it indicates the status on the way to personhood – from the past to the present and future. Techniques are used which address the energetic aspect of the individual, including her self-perception, self-expression, and self-possession. These also include work with body contact, boundaries, grounding, and the understanding of muscular tensions as indications of somatic and psychological defenses against past trauma. The goal of therapy is more than the absence of symptoms - it is having aliveness, getting a taste of pleasure, joy, love – vibrant health.
Dr. Alexander Lowen, founder of Bioenergetic Analysis, says :
"It (BA) integrates a work with the body, with the patient's interpersonal relationships, and with his mental processes; each of which is correlated and interpreted in terms of the others.... Bioenergetic Analysis starts with the reality of the body and its basic functions of motility and expression".
Dr. Lowen also writes in his book Bioenergetics: "Bioenergetics rests on the simple proposition that each person is his body. No person exists apart from the living body in which he has existence and through which he expresses himself and relates to the world around him. If you are your body and your body is you then it expresses who you are. It is your way of being in the world. The more alive your body is, the more you are in the world. When a body loses some of its aliveness, as when you are exhausted, for example, you tend to withdraw. Illness has the same effect, producing a state of withdrawal. You may even sense the world at a distance or see it as through a haze. On the other hand, there are days when you are radiantly alive and the world about you seems brighter, closer, more real. We all would like to be and feel more alive, and bioenergetics can help us toward the achievement of this goal."
(Above excerpts are taken from http://www.bioenergeticanalysis.org and presented in edited form)
For more information on BA please visit the International Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis.
Bioenergetic Analysis (BA) is a specific form of body-psychotherapy – based upon the continuity between body and mind – rooted in the work of Wilhelm Reich (very close associate of Sigmund Freud) and founded by Alexander Lowen (a student of Wilhelm Reich). BA basically combines a bodily, analytic and relational therapeutic work, based upon an energetic understanding.
Bioenergetic Analysis helps to release chronic muscular tensions, manage affects, expand the capacity for intimacy, heal sexual difficulties and learn new, more fulfilling ways of relating to others. Tenderness, aggression, assertion – and their confluence in sexuality – are seen as core lifesaving forces. The therapeutic relationship provides a place of safety in which healing begins.
The therapist reads the body, resonates with its energy, feels the emotions, listens, hears and answers the words. The language of the body (posture/gesture, breathing, motility, expression) is on focus as it indicates the status on the way to personhood – from the past to the present and future. Techniques are used which address the energetic aspect of the individual, including her self-perception, self-expression, and self-possession. These also include work with body contact, boundaries, grounding, and the understanding of muscular tensions as indications of somatic and psychological defenses against past trauma. The goal of therapy is more than the absence of symptoms - it is having aliveness, getting a taste of pleasure, joy, love – vibrant health.
Dr. Alexander Lowen, founder of Bioenergetic Analysis, says :
"It (BA) integrates a work with the body, with the patient's interpersonal relationships, and with his mental processes; each of which is correlated and interpreted in terms of the others.... Bioenergetic Analysis starts with the reality of the body and its basic functions of motility and expression".
Dr. Lowen also writes in his book Bioenergetics: "Bioenergetics rests on the simple proposition that each person is his body. No person exists apart from the living body in which he has existence and through which he expresses himself and relates to the world around him. If you are your body and your body is you then it expresses who you are. It is your way of being in the world. The more alive your body is, the more you are in the world. When a body loses some of its aliveness, as when you are exhausted, for example, you tend to withdraw. Illness has the same effect, producing a state of withdrawal. You may even sense the world at a distance or see it as through a haze. On the other hand, there are days when you are radiantly alive and the world about you seems brighter, closer, more real. We all would like to be and feel more alive, and bioenergetics can help us toward the achievement of this goal."
(Above excerpts are taken from http://www.bioenergeticanalysis.org and presented in edited form)
For more information on BA please visit the International Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis.