Fear of Life. Dr. Alexander Lowen M.D.

civilization denies the individual full instinctual gratification, but he believed that this denial was necessary for cultural progress. In effect he accepted the idea that it was the fate of modern man to be unhappy. That fate was not a concern of psychoanalysis, which was limited to helping a person function adequately within the cultural system. The neurosis was seen as a symptom (phobia, obsession, compulsion, melancholia, etc.), which interfered with that functioning.

      Wilhelm Reich had a different view. Although he had studied with Freud and was a member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, he realized that the absence of a disabling symptom was no criterion of emotional health. In working with neurotic patients he found that the symptom developed out of a neurotic character structure and could be fully eliminated only if the person's character structure was changed. For Reich it was not a question of functioning adequately in the culture but of an individual's ability to give himself fully to sex and to work. That ability allowed the person to experience full satisfaction in his life. To the degree that this ability was lacking, the person was neurotic.

      In his therapeutic work Reich focused upon sexuality as the key to the understanding of character. Every neurotic person had some disturbance in his orgastic response. He could not give in fully to the involuntary pleasurable convulsions of the orgasm. He was afraid of the overwhelming feeling of total orgasm. The neurotic was orgastically impotent to some degree. If, as a result of therapy, the person gained this ability, he became emotionally healthy. Whatever neurotic disturbances he suffered from disappeared. Further, his freedom from neurosis continued as long as he retained his orgastic potency.

      Reich saw the connection between orgastic impotence and the oedipal problem. He claimed that neurosis had its roots in the patriarchal authoritarian family in which sexuality was suppressed. He would not accept that man was inexorably bound to an unhappy fate. He believed that a social system that denied to people the full satisfaction of their instinctual needs was sick and had to be changed. In his early years as a psychoanalyst Reich was also a social activist. However, in his later years he came to the conclusion that neurotic people cannot change a neurotic society.

      I have been greatly influenced by Reich's thinking. He was my teacher from 1940 to 1953. He was my analyst from 1942 to 1945. I became a psychotherapist because I believed that his approach to human problems both theoretically (character analysis) and technically (vegetotherapy) represented an important advance in the treatment of the neurotic character. Character analysis was Reich's great contribution to psychoanalytic theory. For Reich the neurotic character was the terrain in which the neurotic symptom developed. He believed therefore, that the analysis should focus upon the character rather than the symptom to effect a major improvement. Vegetotherapy marked the breakthrough of the therapeutic process into the somatic realm. Reich saw that the neurosis was manifested in a disturbed vegetative functioning as well as in psychic conflicts. Breathing, motility, and the involuntary pleasurable movements of orgasm were markedly restricted in the neurotic individual by chronic muscular tensions. He described these tensions as a process of armoring, which reflected the character on the somatic level. He stated that the bodily attitude of a person is functionally identical with his psychic attitude. Reich's work is the basis for my development of bioenergetic analysis, which extends Reich's ideas in several important ways.

      One, bioenergetic analysis provides a systematic understanding of character structure on both the psychic and somatic levels. That understanding enables one to read the person's character and emotional problems from the expression of his body. It makes it possible, also, to imagine the history of the person, since his life experiences are structured in his body.¹ The information gained from this reading of the language of the body is integrated into the analytic process.

      Two, through its concept of grounding, bioenergetic analysis offers a deeper understanding of the energy processes in the body as they affect personality. Grounding refers to the energetic connection between a person's feet and the earth or ground. It reflects the amount of energy or feeling the person allows into the lower part of his body. It denotes the relationship of the person to the ground he stands on. Is he well grounded or is he up in the air? Are his feet well planted? What is his standing? One's feelings of security and independence are intimately related to the function of his legs and feet. These feelings strongly influence his sexuality.

      Three, bioenergetic analysis employs many active bodily techniques and exercises to help a person strengthen his standing, increase his energy, enlarge and deepen his self-perception, and further his self-expression. In bioenergetic analysis the body work is coordinated with the analytic process, making this therapeutic modality a combined body-mind approach to emotional problems.

      For more than thirty years I have been a practicing therapist, working to help patients gain some measure of joy and happiness in their lives. That endeavor has necessitated a continuing effort to understand the neurotic character of modern man from both the cultural and the individual positions. My focus has been and is upon the individual as he struggles to find some meaning and satisfaction in his life; in other words, as he struggles against his fate. However, the background of that struggle is the cultural situation. Without a knowledge of the cultural process we cannot comprehend the depth of the problem.

      The cultural process that gave rise to modern society and modern man was the development of the ego. This development is associated with the acquisition of knowledge and the gaining of power over nature. Man is part of nature like any other animal, fully subject to her laws; but he is also above nature, acting upon and controlling her. He does the same with his own nature; part of his personality, the ego, turns against the animal part, the body. The antithesis between ego and body produces a dynamic tension that furthers the growth of culture, but it also contains a destructive potential. This can be seen best through analogy with a bow and arrow. The more one draws the bow, the further the arrow will fly. But if one overdraws the bow, it will break. When the ego and the body pull apart to the point where there is no contact between them, the result is a psychotic break. I believe we have reached this danger point in our culture. Psychotic breakdowns are quite common, but even more widespread is the fear of breakdown, on both the personal and the social levels.

      Given his culture and the character it produces, what is the fate of modern man? If the story of Oedipus can serve as a prophecy, it is a prophecy of achieving the success and power one seeks only to find one's world coming apart or breaking down. If success is measured by material possessions, as it is in the industrialized countries, and power by the ability to do and go (machines and energy), most people in the Western world have both success and power. The collapse of their world is the impoverishment of their inner or emotional lives. Having committed themselves to success and power, they have little else to live for. And like Oedipus they have become wanderers on the earth, uprooted beings who can find no peace anywhere. Each individual feels alienated, to some degree, from his fellowman, and each carries within him a deep sense of guilt that he does not understand. This is the existential condition of modern man.

      The challenge to modern man is to reconcile the antithetical aspects in his personality. On the body level he is an animal, on the ego level a would-be god. The fate of the animal is death, which the ego in its godlike aspirations is trying to avoid. But in trying to avoid this fate man creates an even worse one, namely, to live in fear of life.

      Human life is full of contradictions. It is the mark of wisdom to recognize and accept these contradictions. It may seem like a contradiction to say that accepting one's fate leads to a change in that fate, but it is true. When one stops struggling against fate, one loses his neurosis (internal conflict) and gains peace of mind. The result is a different attitude (no fear of life), expressed in a different character and associated with a different fate. Such a person will know the fulfillment of life. This is how the story of Oedipus ends, the figure whose name identifies the key problem in the personality of modern man.

      1

      The Neurotic Character

The Oedipal Problem

      It is said that people learn from experience, and in general this is true. Experience is the best and, perhaps, the only real teacher. But when something falls within the area of a person's neurosis, the rule does not seem to apply. The person doesn't learn from experience but repeats