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

ashamed about crying, he would tense the muscles of his throat to prevent the sob from being expressed. We could say that he choked off the impulse or that he swallowed his tears. In this case the person is aware of the feeling of crying or sadness. However, if not crying becomes part of the person's way of being, that is, part of his character (only babies cry), then the tensions in the muscles of his throat develop a chronic quality and are removed from consciousness. Such a person may pride himself that he doesn't cry when hurt, but the fact is that he cannot cry even should he wish to because the inhibition has become structured in his body and is now beyond conscious control. An inability to cry is commonly encountered among men who complain about a lack of feeling. The person may be depressed and recognize that he is unhappy, but he cannot feel his sadness.

      A similar mechanism operates in the suppression of sexual and other feelings. By sucking in the belly, pulling up the pelvic floor, and holding the pelvis immobile, one can reduce the flow of blood into the genital organs and block the natural sexual movements of the pelvis. At first, this is done consciously by tensing the appropriate muscles. But in time the tension becomes chronic and removed from consciousness. In some cases the tension is so severe that the person is not aware of any sexual feelings. I have a patient in therapy who is unable to feel any sexual desire, much as she would like to. In other cases the effect of the tension is to reduce the amount of sexual feeling the person can experience. In these persons one can find superego prohibitions against feeling and expressing sexual desire. The psychic and somatic determinants of behavior are functionally identical. But without acting upon the somatic component, one cannot effectively change character.

      Broadly speaking, feeling is the perception of movement. If a person holds his arm absolutely immobile for five minutes, he will lose the feeling of his arm. He won't feel that he has an arm. The reader can experience this loss of sensation or feeling by letting his arm hang at his side without movement for five minutes or so. Similarly, if you put a hat on; notice how for a few minutes you are conscious of the hat, but then, if it doesn't move, that consciousness disappears and you forget about it. But not all movement leads to feeling. Perception is necessary; if one moves while asleep, there is no feeling. But without movement, there is nothing to perceive. Since the suppression of feeling is accomplished by chronic muscular tensions that immobilize the body, it is impossible for a person to sense a suppressed feeling. He may know logically that feelings are suppressed, but he cannot feel or perceive them. By the same token, character that is structured in the body as chronic tension is generally beyond the person's conscious perception.

      An observer can see the tensions and, if he is trained, can interpret them to understand the person and his history. The common remark that “we do not see ourselves as others see us” is true because our eyes are turned outward. We “see” ourselves subjectively, that is, through feeling, whereas others see us objectively, through vision. Thus, an observer can see by the way we hold ourselves (stiff upper lip, set jaw, and tight throat) that we cannot allow ourselves to give in to crying. All we feel is that we have no desire to cry. The same thing is true of sexuality. The way we carry ourselves expresses our relation to our sexuality. If the pelvis is cocked back but loose and swinging, it denotes a strong identification with one's sexuality. If it is tucked forward (tail between legs) and held rigidly, it expresses the opposite attitude. We are our bodies, and they reveal who we are.

      Both Freud and Fenichel held the belief that neurosis resulted from an inadequate repression of the Oedipus complex. Its persistence was supposed to fixate the individual at an infantile level of sexual development. We are familiar with the man who lives at home with his mother and who is neither married nor has a regular sex life. His life does seem to have an infantile quality. Most people are aware of the incestuous relationship between mother and son except the two persons involved. The man would strongly deny that he had any sexual feelings for or interest in his mother. I would believe him. He has suppressed all sexual desire for her and has effectively repressed the memory of any feeling he once had. His guilt would not permit him to remain in the situation if he had any conscious sexual feeling for his mother. He is “hung up” on her, not because of an inadequate repression but because the repression was too severe. He has no sexual feeling left with which to go out into the world as a man. Such severe suppression of sexual feeling can be explained only by assuming that there was an equally intense incestuous attachment during the oedipal period.

      Repression of the Oedipus complex allows the child to advance into the latency period. Theoretically, this enables him to invest his energies in the outer world, but, as we have just seen, if the repression is severe, this avenue is very limited. The Freudian position poses a real dilemma, as Fenichel notes: “Superficially, no sexual attachment is completely attractive because the partner is never the mother; in a deeper layer, every sexual attachment has to be inhibited because every person represents the mother.”¹³ Given the repression of the Oedipus complex, there is no way the individual can find fulfillment; the most he can hope for is to find a place in society, do his work, get married, and raise a family. Neurosis for Freud represented an inability to function normally in society. He recognized that civilization exacted a price, imposed restraints upon the individual, and created discontents. If in an individual case the price was too high, the restraints too severe, the discontents too great, psychoanalysis was available to help the person gain the ego strength to adapt more successfully.

      Freud thought that only by repressing the Oedipus complex could one avoid the fate of Oedipus. But, as we saw, that doesn't work. The oedipal conflicts are not resolved by repression. They are only buried in the unconscious, where they operate as a fate to control one's behavior. Reich says, “When Freud said that the Oedipus complex vanishes as a result of castration anxiety, we have to add the following: True it vanishes, but it arises anew in the form of character reactions, which, on the one hand, perpetuate its main features in a distorted form, and are, on the other hand, reaction formations against its basic elements.”¹⁴

      I agree with Reich. The Oedipus complex vanishes as a conscious phenomenon through repression, but it then becomes active in the unconscious. Consequently, a person will marry someone who, superficially, is the opposite of his or her parent but then be compelled by the complex to treat the spouse as the parent. Another result is the superficial demonstration of the proper filial love and respect to the parent of the same sex while maintaining under the surface a great hostility. In effect, as I shall explain later, each boy marries his mother and each girl marries her father. And, while we do not kill the parent literally as Oedipus did, we do so psychologically by the hatred in our hearts. It is my argument that repressing the Oedipus complex assures that on a psychological level one will share the fate of Oedipus.

      2

      Fate and Character

The Operation of Fate

      I have long been familiar with the Oedipus story, but recently I returned to it with renewed interest because of the role that fate plays in the myth. Consider the fact that both Laius, the father, and Oedipus, the son, consulted the oracle on separate occasions and were foretold the same fate, and that both took steps to avoid that fate. Laius staked his infant son in the field to die; Oedipus left Corinth to avoid killing his father. Yet despite these efforts to avoid their fate, the prediction of the oracle came true. The question that came to my mind was: Did it happen just because they tried to avoid their fate? This question struck me with some force, since I had been aware for some time that one aspect of the neurotic character is the neurotic's inability to accept himself. I realized that the neurotic individual struggles to avoid a feared fate, but by that very effort he ensures the fate he is attempting to escape.

      Suppose, for example, that Laius had accepted his fate as prophesied by the oracle. Would the story be different? (Such an acceptance could be part of a religious attitude. If it is the will of the gods, so be it.) If Laius had raised Oedipus as his son, at least one incident in the story could not have occurred. Laius would not have been a stranger to his son and so could not have been killed in a chance encounter on the highway. Had Oedipus accepted his fate and remained in Corinth in obedience to the will of the gods, he could not have married his mother. The “ifs” can change a story, but it is because events happened just as they did that we have a meaningful story of human experience.

      Freud had