Alexander Lowen maintained that for every person the basic reality of their existence is their body.

It is through the body that a person perceives the world, and it is with the same body that they respond to it.

In his book «The Betrayal of the Body» Lowen says:

«If the body is in a relatively lifeless state, a person’s ability to receive impressions from the environment and to respond to them is reduced.

The more alive the body, the more vividly a person senses reality and the more actively they respond to it.

We all know from our own experience that when we feel especially well, when we are full of energy and strength, the world is perceived more vividly.

In a state of depression its colours lose their brightness, the world grows pale.

It is the body itself that melts with love, turns to stone with fear, trembles with anger, reaches out for warmth and touch.

Without the body these words would be only poetic images.

Perceived by the body, they possess a reality that fills its existence with meaning.

Grounded in the reality of bodily sensation, the personality finds its essence and its structure.

Abstracted from that reality, the personality becomes a social instrument, a skeleton without flesh».

The problem of therapy is that a person who is cut off from their body does not know what you are talking about.

They may even say something like this:

«What has my body to do with what I feel?»

The question is absurd in itself, because what they feel is their body.

Without the body there are no feelings at all. A person cannot ask such questions unless they have been taught to regard the body as merely a mechanism that keeps them alive, but in no way defines them.

Yet the excessive importance given to mind and spirit has led to the soul losing its bodily covering, and the body losing its soul.

And in the end the whole life process has faced the danger of being turned into a mechanical operation.

The post is based on an excerpt from a work by Alexander Lowen.

«Depression and the Body».