Alexander Lowen Born : December 23, 1910 Died : October 28, 2008 Browse All Authors Top 46 quotes by Alexander Lowen It is a grave injustice to a child or adult to insist that they stop crying. One can comfort a person who is crying which enables him to relax and makes further crying unnecessary; but to humiliate a crying child is to increase his pain, and augment his rigidity. We stop other people from crying because we cannot stand the sounds and movements of their bodies. It threatens our own rigidity. It induces similar feelings in ourselves which we dare not express and it evokes a resonance in our own bodies which we resist. Alexander Lowen pain children people Contact with reality is not an all-or-nothing condition. Alexander Lowen conditions contact reality Fear is another emotion that is strongly suppressed. We cannot afford to be afraid, and so we don't allow ourselves to sense and feel the fear within us. We lower our brows to deny it, set our jaws to defy it, and smile to deceive ourselves. But inwardly we remain scared to death. Alexander Lowen scared emotion fear Everyone who becomes a psychotherapist eventually adopts a theory that suits his needs. Alexander Lowen suits theory needs The only way you can make a marriage work is as free, independent people. It needs to be based on the good feelings that you have for each other, not on need. Alexander Lowen independent feelings people A person does not choose his or her fate; he or she only fulfills it. We are bound by our fate as long as we accept the values that determine it. Alexander Lowen fate doe long No one is exempt from the rule that learning occurs through recognition of error. Alexander Lowen recognition errors I would describe a hero as a person who has no fear of life, who can face life squarely. Alexander Lowen hero fear faces Death is the fate no one can escape. The question, then, is, How does one die? A person can die like a hero or like a coward. The difference is that the hero can face death without fear, whereas the coward can't. Alexander Lowen fate hero death Above all, faith is grounded in one's body, in one's humanity, and in one's animal nature. It is an biological phenomenon and not a psychic creation Alexander Lowen psychics faith animal The modern individual is committed to being successful, not to being a person. He belongs rightly to the action generation whose motto is do more but feel less. Alexander Lowen generations successful action The path to joy leads through despair. Alexander Lowen despair path joy Life is not a mixture of matter and energy but energy in matter, bound in such a way that dissociation is impossible so long as the living process continues. Alexander Lowen mixtures life long Beneath the seemingly rational exterior of our lives is a fear of insanity. We dare not question the values by which we live or rebel against the roles we play for fear of putting our sanity in doubt. Alexander Lowen play depression insanity Are we not witnessing a situation where children are conciously rejecting their parents' value despite love and devotion given to them? The present situation has arisen because parents have failed to transmit a sustaining faith to their children. The basic reason for this failure is that the parents themselves lacked faith. Without faith, their love was an image not a reality, a statement of words not an expression of feelings Alexander Lowen faith love children The repression of the memory is dependent upon and related to the suppression of feeling, for as long as the feeling persists, the memory remains vivid. Alexander Lowen feelings memories long Sustenance for the infant and child is more than alimentary nourishment. The child needs love, security, narcissistic supplies -- however one may describe it. Alexander Lowen narcissistic children needs A person with faith does not question its roots, for he knows that if he subjected it to the critical examination of his intellect, he would end up without faith. The same thing can be said of any feeling. You can analyze any feeling to death, but when you do that, you end up without feeling and without a meaninful life. Alexander Lowen faith roots feelings What happened to me is that as I grew up, I found that I was smart. My mother had insisted on that you see. Oh, but I loved to play ball. I loved the physical aspect. So you have one leg in one field, and one leg in the other and you're nowhere. Alexander Lowen smart mother play Power seems to confer on its possessor a mantle of superiority, specialness, and sexual potency, which the envious person desperately wants because he feels himself on some level to be inferior, unimportant, and impotent. Alexander Lowen envious levels want
