mai_ra
09-03-2008, 09:35 AM
This is one of my favourite psychoanalists, who helps people in dealing with or understanding physical symptoms and disease in their life using his bioenergertic approach. His name is Alexander Lowen.
If you are interested in psychology you may read it, if you'd like to have fun, do not read the thread:)
Quotations from Dr. Lowen’s Writings:
Chronic muscular tensions
“Chronic muscular tensions serve to suppress forbidden and dangerous impulses from consciousness and expression. They are, in effect, locked up so that one need not spend conscious energy guarding against them. It is like imprisoning a dangerous criminal who can be guarded with less energy once he is behind bars. But no prison is fully escape proof. And no superego regardless of how strong can free the person from the possible danger that the suppressed impulse may break out. This impulse is an expression of the person's life force and is, therefore, constantly seeking release. Any breakdown of the defensive structure due either to additional stress or other forces can raise the possibility of such a release. That possibility may be strong enough to evoke the original fear and throw the body into a state of distress. It is this possibility that makes the discussion of emotional conflicts so stressful for many people. Shocks of this kind, if repeated or intense enough, will upset a person's adaptation, undermine his resistance and leave him open to breakdown and illness.”
From Lowen, The Voice of the Body (2005), p.16.
Heart Attack
“…panic is the emotional attitude of persons who develop heart attacks. That panic is expressed in the rigid, over-inflated chest, and is the feeling of being trapped. Although we say "I feel trapped," it is more accurate to say "I feel panic because I sense that I am trapped." However, the rigidity of the chest wall which constitutes the trap and creates the state of panic is at the same time a defense against the perception of the panic. The armoring negates the person's vulnerability and panic while it expresses both.”
From Lowen, The Voice of the Body (2005), p. 22.
Allergies
“Over-reaction by the body to "comparatively innocuous injuries" is seen in allergies. Anyone who has suffered from hay fever knows how violently the body can react to a minor irritant which pollen is. But pollen is only the precipitating cause whose action is similar to the match that lights the fuse. The explosive substance is the predisposing cause. In the case of hay fever this is the hypersensitivity of the tissues which is due to the continuing stress they are under. That stress is caused by the suppression of crying which occurred because of shock. A parent's angry tones ordering a child to stop crying can come as a shock to the organism. This shock will lead to a conflict between the need to cry and the fear of crying. If this conflict is active at the time pollen is in the air, the tissues will become sensitized to it. But to understand the hay fever reaction we must see it as an attempt to discharge the underlying tension and not as a simple response to the irritant. As long as the conflict is alive, pollen will be able to set off the hay fever reaction. Antihistamines prevent the hay fever reaction by drying out the mucous membranes and so de-activating the conflict by deadening the tissues.”
From Lowen, Voice of the Body (2005) , p. 26.
If you are interested in psychology you may read it, if you'd like to have fun, do not read the thread:)
Quotations from Dr. Lowen’s Writings:
Chronic muscular tensions
“Chronic muscular tensions serve to suppress forbidden and dangerous impulses from consciousness and expression. They are, in effect, locked up so that one need not spend conscious energy guarding against them. It is like imprisoning a dangerous criminal who can be guarded with less energy once he is behind bars. But no prison is fully escape proof. And no superego regardless of how strong can free the person from the possible danger that the suppressed impulse may break out. This impulse is an expression of the person's life force and is, therefore, constantly seeking release. Any breakdown of the defensive structure due either to additional stress or other forces can raise the possibility of such a release. That possibility may be strong enough to evoke the original fear and throw the body into a state of distress. It is this possibility that makes the discussion of emotional conflicts so stressful for many people. Shocks of this kind, if repeated or intense enough, will upset a person's adaptation, undermine his resistance and leave him open to breakdown and illness.”
From Lowen, The Voice of the Body (2005), p.16.
Heart Attack
“…panic is the emotional attitude of persons who develop heart attacks. That panic is expressed in the rigid, over-inflated chest, and is the feeling of being trapped. Although we say "I feel trapped," it is more accurate to say "I feel panic because I sense that I am trapped." However, the rigidity of the chest wall which constitutes the trap and creates the state of panic is at the same time a defense against the perception of the panic. The armoring negates the person's vulnerability and panic while it expresses both.”
From Lowen, The Voice of the Body (2005), p. 22.
Allergies
“Over-reaction by the body to "comparatively innocuous injuries" is seen in allergies. Anyone who has suffered from hay fever knows how violently the body can react to a minor irritant which pollen is. But pollen is only the precipitating cause whose action is similar to the match that lights the fuse. The explosive substance is the predisposing cause. In the case of hay fever this is the hypersensitivity of the tissues which is due to the continuing stress they are under. That stress is caused by the suppression of crying which occurred because of shock. A parent's angry tones ordering a child to stop crying can come as a shock to the organism. This shock will lead to a conflict between the need to cry and the fear of crying. If this conflict is active at the time pollen is in the air, the tissues will become sensitized to it. But to understand the hay fever reaction we must see it as an attempt to discharge the underlying tension and not as a simple response to the irritant. As long as the conflict is alive, pollen will be able to set off the hay fever reaction. Antihistamines prevent the hay fever reaction by drying out the mucous membranes and so de-activating the conflict by deadening the tissues.”
From Lowen, Voice of the Body (2005) , p. 26.