Lowen exercises. in the seminar program. Learning different defenses

Analysis various types character in Alexander Lowen's system was discussed in section 2.1.5 of chapter 2. In this section, we will consider only those concepts of Lowen that are important for the process of psychotherapy.

Bioenergetics is aimed at restoring the so-called "primary essence" of a person by achieving freedom of self-expression and mobilization of the energy potential of the body. According to Lowen, a sensitive attitude to the needs of one's own body brings a person closer to his "primary essence" and reduces the alienation from self and others inherent in most people (Lowen, 1996-2000).

Bioenergy has its roots in Wilhelm Reich's bodywork techniques. However, for contemporaries, the ideas of W. Reich were too unusual to be universally recognized. And Lowen used more acceptable terms than Reich, such as "bioenergy" instead of "orgone". In addition, Lowen did not share W. Reich's views on the sexual nature of neuroses, and therefore his work met with greater understanding in society (Sergeeva, 2000).

Bioenergy is a way of knowing your personality through the body and its energy processes. How much energy a person has and how well he uses it determines his reactions. Obviously, a person can deal with life situations more effectively when he has more energy, which he is able to translate into movement and expression.

In general, Lowen's bioenergetic therapy differs significantly from Reich's therapy. For example, Lowen does not strive for a consistent - from head to toe - relaxation of muscle carapace blocks. He, more free than others from the refusal of direct physical contact with the client inherent in psychoanalysis, resorts to manual influence on the body much less often than Reich.

In developing the concept of "energy" following Reich, Lowen went no further than suggesting that some kind of life energy called "bioenergy" is involved in all life processes such as movement, thinking and feeling. In the bioenergetic concepts of psychotherapy, psychological problems are explained by various violations of the body's energy metabolism: concentration, deficiency or redistribution, movement of energy, etc. stiffness, violations of energy processes in the body and adverse changes in the psyche.

Bioenergetics is also a form of therapy that combines body and "mind" work, the purpose of which is to help people resolve their emotional problems and realize their potential for enjoyment and joy in life. The fundamental thesis of bioenergetics is that the body and "mind" are inextricably linked. This means that what "comes to mind" reflects what happened in the body, and vice versa.

According to Lowen, the cause of neurosis, depression and psychosomatic disorders is the suppression of feelings, which manifests itself in the form of chronic muscle tension that blocks the free flow of energy in the body. Patients with neurosis, according to Lowen, spend most of their energy on maintaining the work of psychological defense mechanisms that protect against the influence of both real internal sensations and external influences, and imaginary fears, with the help of muscle tension. For example, a neurotic who avoids fear hides it behind a mask of "masculinity": the shoulder blades are tense and tightened, the chest is swollen, the stomach is drawn in. The client is not aware of his pattern until he realizes that he cannot lower his shoulder blades, relax his chest and abdominal area. If the corresponding tense muscles are relaxed, the very feeling of fear and its cause become accessible to consciousness. In working with the body, two principles are paramount:

1) any restriction of mobility is the result of conflicts unresolved in the past and, at the same time, the cause of emotional disturbances in everyday life, where an adult holistic reaction is needed;

2) any restriction of natural breathing is both a result and a cause of anxiety. The child's anxiety is reflected in the breathing pattern. If anxious situations are prolonged, they are fixed in the form of chest and abdominal muscle tension.

Through the emancipation of the body, a person gains freedom from muscle tension, and this restores the free circulation of vital energy, which leads to deep personal changes. A mature person is able to both control the expression of their feelings, and turn off self-control, surrendering to spontaneity. He has access equally to unpleasant feelings of fear, pain, anger or despair, and to pleasurable sexual experiences, to feelings of joy, love.

As the client's personality develops, the old ineffective pattern that has held back communication, pleasure, spontaneity, and joy is removed.

As already mentioned, a number of concepts have been developed in bioenergetic therapy, which include "energy", "muscle armor", "grounding". Since the concepts of "energy" and "muscle armor" have already been considered, it remains to consider "grounding". Grounding is not only the ability to stand firmly on one's feet in a physical sense, it is also a metaphor for Freud's famous "reality principle". “The better a person feels his contact with the soil (reality), the more firmly he clings to it, the greater the load this person can withstand and the stronger feelings he is able to cope with” (Lowen, 2000).

Lowen drew attention to the fact that many of his clients lack the feeling of solid ground under their feet, contact with reality. Grounding means energetic contact with the soil, a feeling of support, which provides stability and the ability to move.

The nature of grounding reflects a person's inner sense of security. When he is well grounded, he feels comfortable on his feet and is sure that he has the ground under his feet. It does not depend on the strength of the legs, but only on how much a person feels them. Strong, muscular legs can seem like very good support, but often their movements are purely mechanical. This indicates a deep self-doubt, which is compensated by excessive muscle development. A similar uncertainty can be observed in people with underdeveloped legs, but with excessively wide and strong shoulders. Subconsciously fearing a fall or defeat, such people support themselves with their hands, instead of looking for support on the ground.

The problem of lack of a sense of security is unresolvable until a person is aware of his lack of grounding. He may believe that he is safe because he receives money, has a family and position in society. But if he is not grounded, he will still suffer from a lack of an inner sense of security.

Grounding is the opposite of suspension. It is said that a person is in a "suspended state" when he finds himself in an emotional conflict that paralyzes him and prevents him from taking any effective actions aimed at changing the situation. The state of suspension can be conscious and unconscious. When a person is aware of the conflict, but cannot solve it, he feels that the cause is in himself. However, the state of suspension may be due to childhood conflicts, the memories of which have been suppressed for a long time. In this case, we are talking about unconscious suspension.

Any suspension, conscious or unconscious, limits the freedom of movement of a person in all areas of life, and not just in the area of ​​conflict. Moreover, the unconscious state of suspension manifests itself in the form of chronic muscle tension, like all unresolved emotional conflicts.

Any illusion, as it were, hangs a person, although he usually does not notice this. A person falls into an insoluble conflict between the demands of reality, on the one hand, and an attempt to realize an illusion, on the other. He doesn't want to give up on his dream because it means the defeat of the ego. At the same time, he cannot completely ignore the demands of reality. And since to some extent the connection with reality remains, it often has a frightening and threatening look. One continues to see reality through the eyes of a desperate child.

Further, the problem is complicated by the fact that illusions have their own secret life, or, to put it another way, illusions and dreams are part of the hidden life of most people.

The fear of falling is a transitional stage between the state of suspension and a firm position on the ground. In the latter case, there is no fear of falling; in the former, it is denied by illusion. Therefore, it can be said that every client who stops holding on to their illusions and tries to come down to earth will experience the fear of falling.

Bioenergetics includes Reichian breathing theory and many of Reich's emotional release techniques. The main methods of bioenergetics are various manipulations with muscle fascia, breathing exercises, emotional release techniques, tense body postures (“Lowen’s arch”, “Lowen’s arc”), active motor exercises, verbal ways of releasing emotions and various options for physical contact of members of the therapeutic group.

Bioenergetic analysis is a method of psychotherapy that develops and continues the techniques of the work of Wilhelm Reich. The creator of bioenergetics - American psychiatrist and psychotherapist Alexander Lowen (born in 1910) - was a client of W. Reich, then a student, and then an employee. Taking from Reich the basic concepts of the energy basis of psychophysical processes and psychotherapeutic work with the body, he developed his concept of psychotherapy and founded the Institute of Bioenergetic Analysis in New York in the 50s. Over the next thirty years, dozens of similar institutions sprang up in many countries.

Bioenergetic analysis is a form of psychoanalytic and bodily oriented psychotherapy. The fundamental thesis of bioenergetics is that the body and psyche function as a whole: the work of the psyche is a reflection of what happens to the body, and vice versa. After working with the body, analytical work takes place, which leads to an awareness of the causes and relationships of psychological and bodily problems. It helps people resolve emotional problems and more actively realize the potential opportunity to enjoy life and enjoy it.

Bioenergy is a way of understanding the personality in terms of the body and its energy processes. These processes, namely the production of energy through respiration and metabolism and the discharge of energy through movement, are the basic functions of life. How much energy a person has and how he uses it determines his reaction to life situations. Obviously, someone can live more efficiently if they have more energy that can be freely translated into movement and expression.

Bioenergetics is a form of therapy that combines body and mind work to help people resolve their emotional issues and realize the most of their potential for pleasure and joy in life.

As we all know, mind and body can influence each other. The way a person thinks can influence how they feel. The reverse is also true. This interaction, however, is limited to the conscious or superficial aspects of the personality. At a deeper level, that is subconscious level, and thinking, and feelings are due to energy factors.

The energy processes of the body are connected with the state of vitality of the body. The more alive a person, the more energy he has, and vice versa. Rigidity or chronic tension reduces alertness and cuts energy. At birth, the organism is in its most lively, fluid state, and after death, in its most rigid state of rigor mortis. We cannot avoid the rigidity that comes with age. But we can avoid stiffness due to chronic muscle tension resulting from unresolved emotional conflicts.

Every stress causes a state of tension in the body.

Usually the tension disappears when the stress is removed. Chronic tension, however, persists as an unconscious posture of the body or a certain position of the muscles after the stress that provokes it disappears. Such chronic muscle tension impairs emotional health by reducing a person's energy, limiting their mobility (the natural spontaneous play and movement of the muscles) and their self-expression. Thus, if a person wants to regain his full vitality and emotional well-being, he needs to be released from this chronic tension. This is what bioenergetics is.

Keeping a methodology close to modern psychoanalysis, bioenergetics uses touch and pressure on tense muscles, deep breathing and special postures. The patient performs exercises that expand body awareness, develop spontaneous expression and psychophysical integration.

The seminar is intended for psychotherapists who own the methods of body-oriented psychotherapy; specialists and students studying body-oriented psychotherapy and who have passed basic courses the flood.

Relevance of the program: bioenergetic analysis is one of the main directions in TOP, therefore it is impossible to imagine a body-oriented psychotherapist who would not have the skills to work within this area and would not know the basics of bioenergetic theory.

The purpose of training: gain knowledge on the theory of bioenergy analysis, learn the basic principles of functioning and work in bioenergy, gain client work skills.

In the seminar program:

• Alexander Lowen and the history of the emergence of bioenergy.
• The main theoretical concept of bioenergetic analysis, the relationship with the psychoanalytic theory of Z. Freud.
• Works of modern bioenergy therapists.
• Basic principles of functioning of bioenergy.
• Body structure and character.
• Representation of the main mental structures in the body.
• The concept of muscle block (chronic muscle tension).
• The formation of muscle blocks and muscle shell with t. A. Lowen.
• Analysis of daily movements from the point of view of bioenergetics.
• The concept of grounding.
• Types of bioenergy grounding. The role of water, sleep, nutrition, orgasmic function.

As a result of participating in the program, participants:

• get acquainted with the basics of bioenergy, its specifics, basic methods;
• form bodywork skills using bioenergetic analysis;
• learn to deepen and expand breathing;
• they will master the skills of diagnosing muscle blocks, the structure of the “muscle shell” and the character structure.

Bibliography:

1. A. Lowen Physical Dynamics of Character Structure - M .: Pani Company, 1996.
2. A. Lowen Bioenergetic analysis: theory and practice - M .: Institute for General Humanitarian Research 2011.
3. A. Lowen, L. Lowen Collection of bioenergy experiments - M .: OOO AST Publishing House, 2003.
4. A. Lowen Betrayal of the body - M .: Institute for General Humanitarian Studies, 2010.
5. A. Lowen Psychology of the body: bioenergetic analysis of the body - M .: Institute for General Humanitarian Research, 2010.
6. A. Lowen Love and orgasm: a modern view on the psychology of sexual satisfaction - Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix Publishing House. 1998.
7. A. Lowen Sex, love and the heart: the psychotherapy of a heart attack - M .: Institute for General Humanitarian Research, 2004.
8. A. Lowen Pleasure: a creative approach to life - M .: Psychotherapy, 2008.
9. A. Lowen Depression and the body - M .: Psychotherapy, 2008.
10. Z. Freud Introduction to Psychoanalysis: Lectures - St. Petersburg: ABC Classics, 2009.
11. Vita Heinrich-Clauer (Ed.) Handbook Bioenergetic Analysis. Psychosozial-Verlag Giesen, 2011

Surprisingly, many bodily practices are based on attention not only to the physical condition of a person, but also to his energy potential.

In the middle of the XX century. a technology was developed for the accumulation of energy in pre-relaxed muscle areas, called “Lowen Bioenergetic Analysis”. The method is based on the ideas of psychotherapy (verbal psychoanalysis) and Reich's vegetative therapy, so the work is carried out both with the mind and with the body.

The history of the appearance of the technique

Classical psychoanalysis is the progenitor of bioenergetic analysis. Wilhelm Reich, student of Sigmund Freud, in the first half of the 20th century. developed vegetotherapy - a synthesis of psychotherapeutic sessions with bodily exercises. In general, Reich recommended deep breathing techniques to his patients for clear articulation. emotional reactions. Wilhelm's student was Alexander Lowen and John Pierrakos, who continued the practice, transforming it into a separate area of ​​bioenergy.

Long before meeting with Reich, Alexander Lowen began to get involved in research into the relationship between physical states and mental states. In many ways, he was close to the concepts of yoga and progressive relaxation, which paid great attention the mentality of a person.

Like bioenergetic analysis, yoga emphasized the importance of breathing. only taught him the basics for spiritual growth, while bioenergetics focused on pleasure. Lowen tried to synthesize Eastern practices with the traditions of the West, because he knew that bodily disciplines were still of interest to modern society.

A striking example was the popularity of Tai Chi - Chinese exercises to achieve grace and coordination. As a result, Lowen in his further work began to apply the techniques of oriental trance. His approach to therapy borrowed from the Chinese theory of energy blockage, which was seen as a key factor in ailments. Also, in the bioenergetic method, much attention is paid to the relationship with the opposite sex and knee bending exercises. The difference between Lowen's therapy and Tai Chi lies in the need to unblock emotions that are suppressed by consciousness.

As for Reich's methodology, Lowen first became acquainted with his ideas in the context of the question of hysteria. Wilhelm believed that the cause of hysterical seizures is not the repression of the sexual trauma of childhood, but the further suppression of all erotic feelings and, consequently, a late experience of lovemaking, which acted as a catalyst or impetus for the development of symptoms. Actually, the suppression of feelings and a certain posture in space for Reich constitute such an ailment as neurosis. Neurotics can maintain the harmony of body and soul only by limiting their energy due to muscle tension.

Reich believed that vital energy is blocked in the body of the individual due to his removal from illness and anxiety, which is expressed in mobility restrictions and insufficiently deep breathing. After listening to a course of lectures by Wilhelm, Lowen began individual therapy sessions with Reich, and then moved on to independent practice.

The influence of Wilhelm's ideas about involuntary bodily reactions and the treatment of disorders through the emotional sphere was very great for Alexander Lowen, since they laid the foundation for bioenergetics, marked the place of the human body in every personality theory. Bioenergetic analysis, like Reich's therapy, takes into account the reflection of character in the body, and movements serve as a clue to a person's emotions. In both cases, the main task is to combat interference that does not allow the body to be relieved of tension.

After Reich's death, Lowen collaborated with Pierrakos, trying out the first bioenergetic exercises on himself. As a result, the therapy created was qualitatively new, because it was not based on spontaneous movements, as in Wilhelm's.

In the concept of the body, Alexander Lowen organically included human sexuality, the respiratory process, movement in space, sensuality, and ways of self-expression.

A person, according to the founder of bioenergetics, must move freely and fully express himself and feel, otherwise he limits the vital abilities of his physical shell.

Lowen's Body Oriented Therapy differed from Reich's ideas in that bioenergy was seen as part of any life process whether it be action, feeling or thought. In addition, liberation according to Lowen helps to come to the so-called primary nature of man and overcome the alienation of society. From the point of view of the scientist, all impulses are suppressed by the individual because of fear, and this already leads to stiffness and mental problems.

Lowen's concept of energy

The psychophysical state of a person is directly determined by the amount of vital energy. If on its way in the body there are blocks in the form of tense muscles, the individual will sooner or later begin to suffer from various types of disorders. You can realize and defuse tension in the body with the help of gymnastics, which is largely built on abdominal breathing.

Lowen believed that the abdomen is the vital center of the individual, and the diaphragm helps to separate consciousness from the unconscious. When, in the process of deep breathing, energy begins to enter these parts of the body, the integration of the personality occurs, and the permeability of force flows in the body also increases. As a result, a person becomes harmonious, feeling safe.

The founder of bioenergetic analysis believed that it is impossible to interrupt the energy filling of the body, otherwise a person will stop moving, thinking, feeling. Leads to death, for example energy depletion body as a result of lack of food or oxygen.

At the same time, the connection between energy and personality is very strong, because the state of energy level reflected in the behavior of the individual. This is especially noticeable in a state of depression, when spontaneous movements in a person become half as much due to lack of strength. Energy can be increased within the framework of bioenergetics, primarily through full and active breathing.

Lowen pays much attention in his concept to the ratio of charging and discharging the body. It is always necessary to maintain the required level of energy, and it is determined in accordance with the capabilities and needs of the individual.

With the help of simple breathing, it is impossible to replenish the energy reserve to the maximum, it is also necessary to include methods of discharge, which are different movements, voice manipulations, etc. Lowen wrote that energy travels through the body with different fluids, so the body is essentially a large energy cell in which excitation takes on different directions.

Another important aspect that affects the analysis of the biofield and the study of a person as energy system According to Lowen, it is contact with the outside world. Energy tone can easily increase with positive communication. A person can be stimulated by close people, beautiful pictures nature, good weather.

The more charge in the individual, the easier it is to bear the influence of the negative. At the same time, such a subject seems more pleasant to others, it is good to be with him, he attracts at the level of intuition.

The essence of customer service

So, in all his work with the ideas of Reich and Eastern practices, Lowen proceeds from the fact that all bodily sensations are manifested by a person in his movements and help to understand personal characteristics. Any neurosis or experience is reflected in the structure of one or another part of the body, in the reaction, breathing, posture and gestures. All these bodily patterns are the structure of a human character that affects communication with the world and the model of one's own Self. With all this, it is necessary to study movements as an object of the laws of physics.

This means that each action requires a certain amount of released energy, and this amount of force must equalize the action and reaction. Energy is an interchangeable material that can be reduced to a common indicator.

Lowen believed that the tension in the trunk arises from the distance from physical pleasures, i.e. due to social prohibitions or restrictions. Moral and cultural postulates confuse a person, because he is forced to transform the natural course of energy in the body.

As a result, the suppression of one's own desires forces the energy to stagnate, to accumulate inside the physical shell for years. Such energy pressure inevitably affects individual muscle groups, which are clamped and shackled. Therefore, the task of bioenergetic analysis is to release energy to freedom and restore its former dynamics of movement in the body.

Alexander Lowen considered body language from two perspectives. On the one hand, these are body signals about the personality itself, and on the other hand, verbal constructions that help to learn about the functions of the body.

For example, love invariably lurks in a person's heart, and it is located in the chest, which may have responses or be distinguished by excessive static and rigidity.

Bioenergy allows you to get rid of the emotional difficulties of a person, it teaches him to get joy from life and relax properly, avoid overstrain even in stressful situations.

From the point of view of Alexander Lowen, any psychological snag in a person’s head is the result of a misperception of reality. At the same time, only our body acts as the most objective reality, which means that we must learn to treat it correctly, give it due attention in order to get rid of various neuroses.

Lowen in his work with patients focused on the posture of the individual, his postures in space, gestures and facial expressions. Such non-verbal tools for positioning oneself in the world told the scientist which parts of the body suffer from muscle tension in a person. Appropriate treatment was various exercises for relaxation.

Bioenergetic analysis, the theory and practice of which are described in detail by Lowen in his books, begins with determining the type of human character.

This means that the therapist must determine in the body of the client those areas that are tense in the muscles and do not allow the movement of psychic energy. Then the patient must master certain exercises, i.e. form new organism with relaxed muscles, free breathing and expressed emotions. As a result, a person has a fresh supply of his energy at his disposal.

The collaboration between the bioenergy specialist and the patient is a technique for relieving bodily tension through specific postures and physical practices. As part of bioenergetic work with a client, the therapist may use breathing techniques, techniques for liberating emotions, exercises for accumulating tension, verbal ways to express feelings, physical contact with different members of your group.

Pressure on the muscles and touch are accompanied by deep breathing in special postures so that a person can become aware of his own body, expand his understanding of it and, thereby, integrate the body on the mental and physical levels. Part of the session is spent on clarifying problems, describing difficulties in dealing with the world, but the maximum time in such sessions is always given to swings, backbends, squats and other forms of returning to the natural flow of energy.

Bioenergetics helps people to rediscover the primary nature, which was available to them earlier in childhood. It is she who is the criterion of freedom, beauty and grace of a person, i.e. healthy mind and healthy body.

Learning different defenses

In an attempt to protect oneself from all sorts of dangers (first of all, from the state of anxiety and fear), a person creates protections or barriers on the way to his own heart.

These protections are arranged in layers, each of which must be carefully studied in bioenergetic therapy:

• The selfish layer is the outer boundary of the personality. Psychic methods of protection work in it, i.e. denial, projection, accusation, mistrust, intellectualization and rationalization.
• The muscle layer stores chronic tension that keeps the ego protected and keeps the next layer of hidden feelings from coming.
• The layer of emotions is based on the suppression of different states. This is, for example, a feeling of horror, anger, sadness, anger, despair, pain.
• The heart layer or essence that determines the ability to love and be the object of love.

To realize the tricks of the human psyche within the first layer is only the primary task of bioenergetic therapy, because such a conscious understanding of one's mistakes does not lead to relaxation of the body or the release of hidden feelings. It is much more beneficial to work on the second layer, because you can move into the primary structure associated with tightness in the body, and also into the third layer by mobilizing contracted muscles that limit the expression of specific emotions.

Grounding principles

Since Lowen's concept is based on Reich's idea of ​​the importance of vegetative or biopsychic energy, much attention in the method is paid to the grounding of energy, i.e. keeping in touch with reality.

If a person is healthy, then his connection with the earth is constant and strong, so that he receives pleasure from life automatically.

But the body with disorders ceases to provide free energy circulation, it suppresses its desires. Lowen believed that life with the constant dominance of the mind splits the body into two parts, opposing logic and feelings, mind and body, sexuality and spirituality.

In order to teach a person to be grounded and connected to nature, Lowen developed a series of exercises, different from Reich's therapy. Bioenergetic analysis of the body pays special attention to the lower half of the body, which is not sufficiently charged with energy due to the constant detachment from unconscious desires for the sake of analysis and reason. In such situations, sexual release, for example, brings back a sense of reality, but only for a while. And only by transferring feelings to the zone of the legs and abdomen can harmony be achieved in the upper and lower parts of the body.

It is important to constantly think about your physical pleasures and the principles of natural abdominal breathing. The grounding of the individual is expressed even in normal posture standing. The feet are firmly pressed to the floor, while they are slightly relaxed. Body weight is evenly distributed between the toes and heels of the feet, otherwise physical balance cannot be achieved. Finding a sense of support, according to Lowen, can be done by deep breathing and bending the knees.

An important grounding point according to Lowen is the center of the body - the heart, which controls the rest of the organic systems. Therefore, the feeling of love, its correct giving and receiving, help not only to establish communication with loved ones, but also to weaken chronic illnesses or mental problems.

Grounding is the realization of the so-called reality principle and following it, its practical implementation.

This means that a mature person takes the right position in any situation, makes competent decisions and, most importantly, accepts the fact of physical existence in his body.

Due to grounding, a person releases his bodily excitement, gives him the way to exit. If the accumulation of the vital charge is infinite, the excess energy will make a person hysterical, restless, depressive. Weakly grounded people can even fall into a schizophrenic state. The grounded individual is aware the world and himself, he is connected with people, sexuality, his own body. Grounding provides energy exchange with the soil, gives a feeling of support and internal security, comfort.

Language of the body

As already mentioned, the heart for Lowen is the center of the whole organism, which determines the position of any parts of the body in space. WITH external environment The human heart communicates by transmitting non-verbal information through several channels:

1. Mouth and throat is the first channel, originating from infancy. A closed heart manifests itself as a tense neck and constricted throat.
2. Arms is the second heart channel, expressing love when needed. Energy stops flowing into this area if a person has tension in the shoulders or spasm in the muscle tissue of the hands. In the first case, the individual restrains the desire to hit, and in the second - to grab, strangle, injure.
3. Waist, pelvis and reproductive system - the third channel of communication, expressing love through sex. Muscle tension that blocks the flow of energy into this channel manifests itself in the diaphragm, the upper part of the legs.

In order to be able to read body language, the therapist must attune the person to constant contact with body.

Therefore, the bioenergetic technique pays great attention to physical touches. Thanks to them, the patient opens up, demonstrates his usual postures in space, which help to identify various psychological traits that require transformation. Touching a person revives suppressed feelings in him, adds energy to his personality system. But at the same time, it is very important that the touch corresponded to the feeling that the therapist wants to convey.

The work of a bioenergetic therapist is closely related to teaching the client specific exercises. As Alexander Lowen writes, bioenergy experiments (that is, the adoption of certain postures in space) help to fill chronically tense parts of the body with vitality and relax them. The tense position of the body forces sooner or later any individual to weaken his protective barrier, as evidenced by the trembling of the muscles after the completion of the task. Due to the special position of the body, a person learns to communicate with the body, he is aware of the deepest feelings of his personality, which gave rise to immobility in him.

Types of individual characters

Everyone has different ways of controlling repressed desires and achieving physical pleasures. Bioenergetics considers the totality of such life methods of a person as a character - a special style of behavior that can unconsciously cause a constant overstrain of the body.

Reworking earlier psychotherapeutic and mental theories, Alexander Lowen singled out five basic types of an individual's character, each of which differs in its method of protecting the muscular and psychological level.

Schizoid type

Differs inappropriate emotions. Such a person has a predisposition to schizophrenia, which means that his personality is devoid of integrity. Thoughts, for example, can be strikingly different from behavior and feelings, because the individual withdraws into himself, losing touch with reality. Base life experience- rejection. In the so-called schizoids, the sense of self is not sufficiently expressed, the ego is very weak, and contact with the body is almost absent.

Such people are distinguished by clamped and narrow body, the only exceptions are individuals with paranoid patches that make the trunk athletic.

The schizoid type of person suffers from maximum tension in the area of ​​the diaphragm, skull, joints of the legs, pelvis, and shoulders. Very often, the joints can be very rigid or, on the contrary, very, very flexible.

The face of such an individual resembles a mask, because the eyes are lifeless and do not look at the interlocutor. The arms simply hang from the body, the feet are cold and tense, and all the weight of the body is transferred to the outer edge of the feet.

Sometimes it may seem that the body of such a subject seems to consist of different halves stolen from other people. At the moment of stress, a person assumes an arched position, and his torso seems to be completely broken. Legs, head and main body can be at an angle to each other.

oral type

Cannot function without outside help. This person retains the characteristics of the behavior of a baby, he does not know how to be independent, he constantly needs care and support. The aggressiveness of the individual is underestimated, he clings to other people, he may try to disguise uncertainty with feigned independence, but is quickly blown away in a stressful situation.

The main life experience is deprivation.

Outwardly, these people are very thin and tall, but without tension in the body. Their muscles are poorly developed, which is noticeable in the limbs. Their feet are narrow, thin, it seems that the legs do not hold the body at all, therefore the knees are tightly brought together.

From a physiological point of view, these people are completely immature in appearance, because they have a small pelvis and little hair. Sometimes the body is close to children's parameters. As Alexander Lowen points out, this type of bioenergetic analysis reveals shallow breathing because there is not enough power to inhale and exhale deeply.

psychopathic type

Such people are distinguished by the denial of feelings, because their egos with reason resist manifestations of sexuality. Energy is invested in creating a mental image of an individual, such a person needs to control everything. Ways of dominating people usually come down to either trying to offend, or to influence through the seduction of naive personalities.

Obsessed with the lust for power and leadership.

The body of a carrier of active psychopathy is not very proportionate in the upper half, since the ego is constantly inflated, they have a rigid and insufficiently energetic pelvis. Those who are prone to seduction or destruction are more harmonious in the outer shell, and they have a very flexible back and a very vigorous, but isolated from the rest of the body, pelvic region.

In any variety of this character, there is a clamped diaphragm, tension in the eyes, neck and back of the head.

masochistic type

These are individuals who are submissive to circumstances and fate, because they love to complain and sob. External behavior speaks of the subordination of a person, but inside he can show very strong feelings, such as anger, enmity, denial and superiority.

Prone to constant suffering.

Such an individual has a strong fear of the manifestation of these emotions, which he blocks with muscle tightness. The body of a masochist is very muscular, short, sometimes thick. The body is distinguished by a plurality of hair, a small neck and the same waist, retracted head. At the same time, the pelvis always comes forward, which creates the image of flat, tucked-in buttocks. As a result, the body becomes very weak in the waist area, even bends.

Women of this type often have signs of a rigid type in the upper part of the body, and below they have just heavy hips. Due to the fact that masochists suffer from energy stagnation in the body, their skin acquires a dark color.

Rigid type

It gives the impression of a proud person, thus protecting himself from possible concessions, perceived as a fall or a fact of submission. These people are inflexible even in appearance, because they have a straight spine and a high head.

Rigidity of character is manifested in the fear of being deceived or used, because of which any impulses to open oneself are restrained.

The ego of such a person is highly developed, he controls his behavior carefully and tries to keep strong connection with reality. But he needs this contact to protect himself from possible pleasures, which is the basic contradiction of personality.

Outwardly, this individual looks holistic and harmonious, he has clear eyes and a pleasant shade of integument, his gestures are always alive. But if the rigidity in the character increases, then the coordination of movements is lost, the look becomes cloudy, and the skin acquires an unpleasant grayness.

Each of the described character structures is fraught with a basic conflict, which causes external changes. So, Lowen believed that schizoids cannot choose between their existence and needs, and masochists are forced to choose between intimacy and freedom. The oral character conflicts in the plane of needs and independence, the rigid character in the category of freedom and mutual love. Finally, psychopaths make a choice between independence and intimacy.

The benefits of bioenergy from A. Lowen

1. There is an understanding of the personal structure through the bodily description.
2. Energy is mobilized in the body and all its functions improve, energy blocks disappear.
3. The pleasures of life become better in quality and quantity by breaking down old physical patterns.
4. Behavioral stereotypes in stressful situations are transformed into the most optimal and positive ones.
5. The attitude towards oneself and one's environment changes, reality is perceived without the load of one's own fears.
6. The emotional mood becomes more even, depressive and neurotic manifestations are excluded.

Lowen's bioenergetic analysis allows the vital forces of a person to flow freely through the body, which guarantees a state of general harmony and unity.

Such an individual does not oppose his own sexuality to spirituality and does not suppress feelings for the dominance of reason. The actions of a subject with a well-established bioenergetic flow are distinguished by ease and freedom, which over time allows for deep transformations of the personality. Such a person knows how to be both restrained and spontaneous, he is equally free to address both negative emotions, and to the feelings that give pleasure.

Body Oriented Therapy has been setting people up for years to open themselves up to physical pleasures and break up muscle blocks.
Lowen's bioenergetic exercises revitalize the human body, helping it to release repressed emotions and feelings, as well as resolve internal conflicts. Certain experiences of impact on different parts of the body increase a person's resistance to stress and harmonize the mind with the body shell.

Lesson Basics

The bodily practice of Alexander Lowen is aimed at generating certain vibrations in the human body. In fact, vibrational waves in this therapy are the general reactions of the physical shell, including the pulsation of both individual organs and entire organic systems. The main thing is only what factor became decisive in the appearance of these vibrations.

The creator of bioenergy believed that the cause of flowing bodily sensations is excitement, which is a mixture of excitement, desire for intimacy and activity of intuition.

It is in the vibrations that the natural mobility of the individual lies, which is characteristic of emotional activity or spontaneous actions. Everything that belongs to the sphere of the unconscious is not controlled by the human mind or ego, which means that it is the most natural manifestation of the human essence. In childhood, all individuals are very mobile, but over time, their lifestyle more and more resembles a static one. An early loss of body activity occurs in stressful situations, during depression.
Perfect Look life implies a harmonious ratio of conscious and partially conscious actions. A person with such a system of movement is a graceful person, but this grace can only be achieved by striving for higher self-control and self-consciousness. It is precisely bioenergetic therapy that is called upon to acquire such a height, which weakens the rigidity of the body, increases energy potential individual and deepens his breathing.

How to detect muscle tension

Before choosing a system of exercises, Lowen advises the therapist to diagnose the patient for bodily blocks. First, the client should lie on their back.

Breath analysis

The first stage of the examination is a breath analysis. It is necessary to assess whether the chest and abdomen enter the process of breathing and how often inhalations and exhalations enter the pelvic region. Need to check chest on the degree of rigidity by slightly pressing on it. It is also worth evaluating the skill of conscious breathing when the specialist asks the client to breathe under his hand placed on the patient's stomach.
Here, the soreness of the abdomen and chest, their bulge, and the reaction to tickling are checked. Then you need to evaluate the hips. The feeling of tickling, soreness, the degree of muscle tension or their excessive laxity are analyzed. Particular attention is paid to the gluteal muscles.

Examination of the muscles of the neck and shoulders

Then the condition of the muscles of the neck and shoulder girdle is examined. Muscles from the cervical spine are carefully studied, where they connect the neck and skull. The therapist looks at the level of soreness, sensitivity from tickling.
Attention is also paid to the throat blocks. They are evidenced by the quiet and high voice of the patient, as well as the occurrence of throat spasms in him during excitement, the appearance of lumps in his voice, frequent nausea with difficult to elicit vomiting.

Examination of the circular muscles of the mouth

Equally, like other muscles, the circular muscles of the mouth are checked, the tension of which is not recognized at all, but is manifested by specific wrinkles and tightly closed lips. Then the therapist checks the soreness of the masticatory muscles.
It is also necessary to diagnose blocks in the eye muscles. They are indicated by radial wrinkles, rare tearing, blurred eyes.

Pelvic mobility study

The next step is to ask the person to stand up. It is necessary to check how mobile the pelvis is during the respiratory process. To analyze blocks in the pelvis, you can perform a simple exercise: take a standing pose with knees slightly bent and feet apart 25 cm apart.
It is necessary to transfer the weight of the body to the toes and set the pelvis as far as possible, while still bending the knees and moving, as in the process of defecation. At this moment, the muscles in the pelvic floor area relax, and then they contract. If a person does not feel the difference, he clearly has a block.
Tension in this area has to do with early teaching about cleanliness or masturbation inhibitions.

Grounding exercises

Alexander Lowen was a supporter of many Eastern practices that highly valued the lower centers of the human body as stores and conductors of energy. Bioenergetics suggests that it is vital for a person to stand on the ground with both feet, and firmly and confidently. On a personal level, this gives a sense of independence and security, it also does not allow you to lose contact with reality and your own physical shell.

Grounding allows you to know your sexuality and tune in to receive true pleasures.

These exercises are aimed at focusing attention and shifting the center of gravity to the area below the abdomen in order to be closer to the ground and forever forget about the irrational fear of falling and losing support. In case of successful grounding, a person becomes the owner of a harmonious body, in which there are no barriers to natural course vital energy.

In addition, a number of bioenergy experiments in this block allow you to realize which muscles are tense and why it is dangerous for the individual's breathing.

Checking the level of rooting

First, you should check the level of your own rooting on the surface of the earth and the degree of vibration signals.

• Spread your feet at a distance of 45 cm from each other and turn them slightly inward so that the muscles of the buttocks tighten.
• Bend forward and touch the floor with your fingers, slightly bending your knees. At the same time, transfer the body weight to thumbs legs, no pressure on the hands.
• Lower your chin as low as possible without straining your neck. Follow free and deep breathing through the mouth.
• You can slightly lift your heels off the floor.
• Then begin to straighten your legs, pulling the tendons under your knees. Hold the pose for a minute and then reflect on how you feel.

There should be vibratory activity in the legs, marking a wave of excitement in the body, all energy blocks temporarily subside.
For this experience to be successful, two rules must be observed:

• Always bend your knees. The elasticity of this part of the body allows you to shift the load on the lower back, and this corresponds to the effect of a stressful situation on the body. It is the knees that absorb the shock of a person from any unexpected event and let the pressure sink into the depths of the earth.
• Let go of your belly. Ideas about perfect figure almost inextricably linked with thoughts about the smartness of a person. However, tension in the abdomen blocks the spontaneous actions and skills of sexuality. It also significantly complicates abdominal breathing and simply wastes the energy of the individual. It must be remembered that physical tightness always provokes psychological stress, while the released stomach has little to do with the belly. The main block for the movement of energy is located in the navel.

Abdominal relaxation exercise

Lowen's bioenergetics, whose exercises help to feel chronic ailments in the body, pays a lot of attention to relaxing the abdomen. There are two techniques aimed at relieving tension in the abdominal region.
Method 1

• Place your feet parallel at a distance of 25 cm.
• Bend your legs a little.
• Shift your weight onto your heels, pushing forward with a straight but not rigid body, and keep your feet on the floor.
• Release your belly while maintaining even mouth breathing for a minute. You will feel tension in the lower half of your torso. Think about whether you are breathing with your stomach and whether it is possible to feel like a careless, slumped individual with such a released stomach.

Method 2
The second method of working on the abdomen is called the Arc (Arch, Bow) and is actively used in oriental technique Tai chi. This exercise helps to open the breath in a stressful situation and create the necessary pressure on the legs.

• Spread your feet 45-50 cm apart, slightly turning them inward.
• Clench your hands into fists, place them on the lumbar region, turning your knuckles thumbs up.
• Bend your knees as much as possible without lifting your heels off the ground, and bend back.
• Move over the fists, shifting the weight only forward, onto the feet. Breathe deeply, engaging your belly.

If there is a feeling that the lower back is stretched, then there is muscle tension there. Please note that with relaxed legs, discomfort should not occur in the hips or knees.

Exercise 2

Place your feet parallel, bend your knees, relax your pelvis and take it back a little. The upper half of the body should go forward without tilting, as in a fall. The body weight is transferred to the tips of the feet.
Keep your head and torso in line so you don't lose your balance. Raise your chin, look straight ahead.
Visualize a heavy basket on your head. Your chest is drawn in and your belly expands to make your breathing as full as possible. The earth supports you. Tight muscles in this position are slowly stretched, so you may feel pain at first.

Exercise 3

For maximum rooting, it is helpful to change your gait so that each step is associated with a conscious sense of being in contact with the ground. Move slowly and transfer your body weight to each foot in turn. No need to hold your breath or strain your shoulders, blocking the knee muscles also negatively affects.
When walking, a person should feel that his center of gravity is shifting down, from which a sense of security and grace grows.

Exercise 4

Place your feet 20 cm wide and squat down. Hold the position without external supports, in extreme cases, grab the furniture.
The feet should be pressed to the floor, and the weight of the body is transferred to the toes. You can facilitate the exercise with a soft roller under the heels. The task of such an exercise is to stretch the muscles of the legs, relieve them of tension, therefore it is useful to periodically shift the body weight back and forth. The soreness of such a pose is associated with blocks in the legs, so you can sometimes kneel down and sit on your heels, but this also causes discomfort due to energy stagnation in the legs and feet.

Exercise 4

Take a seated position in a chair. Put your feet on the floor, start lifting the torso without resting on furniture, pushing from the ground. To do this, transfer the body weight to the front of the feet, then rest against them and spring up.
This exercise allows you to experience the closest contact with the ground and does not require as much effort.

Exercise 5

Place your feet at a distance of 30 cm from each other, bend your knees and put your hands on them. The purpose of this workout is to move the pelvis to the sides due to lower extremities, keeping the upper half of the body passive.
It is necessary to transfer the body weight to the pads of the right foot, straighten the corresponding knee and tilt the pelvis to the right. Then the action is repeated with the left limbs, and the pelvis is shifted to the left.
The exercise must be repeated 5 times in each direction in order to realize that a true grounded movement excites and looks graceful, while forced turns of the pelvis with twisting of the entire body do not bring pleasure.

Activation of the pelvic muscles

A tight stomach is a consequence of limiting one's own sexuality. However, the flow of sexual feelings may not even reach this area if the pelvic area is not free. Blocks in the pelvic area interfere with the necessary vibrations, they also negatively affect the way the head is held.
Alexander Lowen noted that most often a person tightens the buttocks, and the pelvis pushes forward, creating a strong stressful tension in the lower back, in the lower back. When the pelvis is pulled back, sexual feelings enter the genitals, and this helps the personality to be energetically discharged. Without relaxed pelvic muscles, a person is not able to feel grounded in the sexual area of ​​his life.
That is why, within the framework of bioenergetic therapy, one must learn to spontaneously rock the pelvis. At the same time, however, one should not forget about the need for vibrations in the legs and harmonious breathing movements.

Exercise 1

Stand up and bend your knees slightly, spread your feet 30 cm apart. Transfer the body weight to the balls of your big toes, release your stomach and calmly place your palms on your hips. Begin to rotate your hips from side to side, grabbing only the pelvis, and not the upper half of the torso or legs.
Breathe freely using only your mouth. Move 12 times to the left and the same number to the right. Try to keep the pelvic floor relaxed, as well as the anus.
Usually this exercise is not given to those who suffer from sexual problems or from insufficient grounding.

Exercise 2

Now try to become aware of the blocks at the base of the back and in the pelvis. Lie down on the ground, bend your knees and place your feet on the floor. With each breath, move your pelvis back so that your buttocks rest on the surface and your stomach comes out. As you exhale, the pelvis rises slightly, and the feet press into the floor, providing grounding.
After 15-20 breathing cycles through the mouth (with the departure of inhalations and exhalations into the pelvis), you can finish the exercise.
The pelvis and breathing should correspond to each other, there is no need to strain the buttocks. Do not push the pelvic region up with tight hips and abdomen, because this blocks the sexual experience and all spontaneity of action.

Exercise 3

Regularly also stretch the inner thigh muscles that bring the legs together. To do this, take a supine position, placing a folded blanket under the lumbar region. Buttocks should touch the floor.

• Bend your legs, spread them apart, but the feet should be in contact with each other.
• Keep your hands on the sides of the body or on the inside of the thighs, and tilt your head back.
• It is necessary to put pressure on the floor with your buttocks and spread your knees without tearing your feet apart.
• Hold the pose for a few minutes, letting go of your belly and taking deep belly breaths. At severe pain you can remove the roller from under the back.
• You can continue the exercise by returning your knees to the starting position. The feet should be separated by 50-60 cm, followed by the knees.
• Then begin to slowly bring your knees together, but do not squeeze the muscles of the legs. Feel the pleasant vibration of your feet.

Emotional Expression

From Lowen's point of view, bioenergetic therapy should help a person to realize the self. Closely related to the last term is self-expression, i.e. freedom of expression. It is not necessary to manifest the self consciously, sometimes a deep voice and shining eyes, and this cannot be achieved artificially.
Lowen in his experiments teaches people to consider their feelings in a safe environment, expressing fear, anger, and sadness.

The purpose of such exercises is to develop self-control, which will help in the future to maintain large volume energy even in stressful situations.

Bioenergetics makes a person balanced, i.e. promotes coordination of actions and feelings.

Exercise 1

The first exercise introduces a person to protest expression and demonstrates the level of self-expression of the individual. The advantage of these actions is also that they involve the lower half of the body in the activity.

• Lie down on a soft surface, relax your legs.
• Place your palms on the edge of the bed or mattress.
• Raise your leg and start hitting with your heel from top to bottom, at first slowly and lightly, and then harder and faster (from 25 hits at the beginning to 200 times at the end). Strikes should be a solid movement, passing through the entire body.
• You need to raise your head with each jump of the foot, and vice versa.

If it is difficult to perform the exercise, you can recall past unfair moments in life. You can also shout “No” while observing deep breathing.

Exercise 2

You can also hit a soft surface with your fists or tennis rackets.

• To do this, you need to spread your feet 25 cm, bend your knees, shift your weight on your toes.
• Hands are raised behind the head, bending the back and hitting the mattress or bed with screams that will help defuse the accumulated anger.

However, it is necessary to beat not with all the force, but very gracefully and smoothly, bringing the shoulders far back. Hitting is not a muscle contraction, but a free and calm action that gives excitement to the whole body - from the feet to the hands. As a result of the exercise, you can relax the upper half of the back and shoulders.

Exercise 3

If you are working with a partner or in a therapy group, be sure to refer to the exercise for developing trust and unity in a team. In a not too lit space, lie on your back on a soft surface, bend your legs at a distance of 45 cm from each other, relax, close your eyelids.
Focus on taking deep breaths in and out, and in a minute start remembering one event from your childhood when you were limited in your desire to learn something new, when you cried or were furious. Imagine the situation down to the smallest detail and try to express your feelings for your parents through tears, screams, any actions.
Then you need to calm down and lie down, inhale and exhale 5-6 times. Then open your eyes, spread your fingers and toes, and after 2-3 minutes put a towel in your mouth. Clamp it with your teeth and begin to drag to relieve pressure in the jaw area.
After 5 minutes, remove the towel and start twisting it aggressively with both hands. Relax, then close your eyes and return to the memories. Think of a different reaction to your parents, voice it, and calm down.
After a couple of minutes, open your eyes and breathe deeply and gently. Change places with a partner whose goal is to calm the patient with his presence, to remind him of the need for verbal manifestations of feelings. It can also relieve tension by massaging certain parts of the body.

Breathing practices

Proper breathing is the key to exciting body vibrations, since oxygen forms the necessary energy in the body.

Lowen's bioenergetic experiences help you become aware of your breathing, make inhalations and exhalations more natural and relaxed.

In adulthood people often suffer from respiratory disorders due to emotional conflicts and, as a result, muscle clamps.
Ideal breathing must necessarily involve the throat, diaphragm, chest, abdominal cavity, lower ribs. Incomplete breaths and exhalations represent a person's protection from fear and panic.

When working with breathing, it is important to note the role of a loud voice, which provides confidence in the process of recruiting and assimilating oxygen.

Holding the sound creates blocks, and releasing it resonates in the body and leads to the necessary vibrations. Bioenergetics teaches a person to breathe effortlessly and loudly so that suppressed stress reactions and pain sensations are destroyed under the pressure of sound and freedom.

• Sit on hard surface. Extend the sound "a" for at least 20 seconds. Gradually increase the time of the sound to neutralize the blocks in the breath. As a result of the exercise, people usually notice intense inhalations and exhalations, as well as crying. Also, the sound “a” can be replaced by counting aloud at regular intervals.
• Take a sitting posture, breathe relaxedly for a minute. Then make a sound throughout the exhalation. Repeat it as you inhale. Feel the air being sucked into the body, as before a sneeze.
• Place a roll of a towel or blanket on a chair. Lie down on it to stretch your back muscles and release your chest while breathing through your mouth. There will be back pain, but it is not too noticeable if there are no problems with the spine. This action helps to release blocked emotions, so a person may sob or vomit.
• To remove the throat clamps and deepen your breathing unconsciously, you need to sit down, relax and sound a long moan with each breath. Try to moan and inhale for three cycles. Then change your exhalation moan to “Wow” or fake sobbing to rock yourself into tears or a scream. Pronounce the sounds while inhaling, do not be afraid to cry, because this process perfectly relieves tension and corrects breathing.

Group lessons

With the benefit of breathing, you can also conduct group classes.

• Stand in a circle, spreading your feet 90 cm and transferring the weight to the fingers of the lower extremities. Let everyone in the team bend their knees, relax, let the pelvis sag. One palm should be on the stomach.
• Look at the opposite participant, inhale deeply through the mouth and send the air through the channel to the abdomen.
• As you exhale, let the sound escape from the depths, which you can hold for as long as possible, but without straining.
• After 16 slow inhalations and exhalations, you can shake yourself, shake your arms and legs.

As part of the exercise, you do not need to hold back, you need to monitor your feelings and possible obstacles in breathing. At the end, you can jump, lifting your feet a little off the surface, walk in a circle, and then relax by moving your body weight forward and straightening your back.

Additional techniques

Exercise 1

To work on your own grace, it is useful to study spontaneous movements at the moment. domestic activities like cooking in the kitchen or walking. Try to be aware of your movements, feel the steps, but do not think about them. The body must move at its own pace.
To understand the accuracy and grace of your movements, it is also useful to stretch out your hand, pressing your feet to the floor and bending your knees. At the moment of the gesture, you need to lean forward a little, feeling how the wave rises from the ground and passes through the body.
With such a supply of any movement, the isolation of the body disappears.

Exercise 2

Lowen pays great attention to the ability of a person to be in touch with his feelings and reality. You can not constantly use the body mechanically, so bioenergetics offers simple experiments to understand your own body. In particular, you can sit in a chair, raise your arms, bend back well and tip over the back of the chair. The bend of the body should be full, you need to hold the position for 30 seconds, while breathing through your mouth.
Practice helps to feel the tension in the shoulders, in the back. Most people intuitively want to hunch over again after exercise, although this should not be allowed. It must be remembered that a soft spine does not allow you to withstand stressful situations, and vice versa, a hard back does not allow you to bend easily if necessary.

Exercise 3

The harmony of sexuality and spirituality is achieved by several techniques. Firstly, you can admire your back in the mirror when you turn your head. In this case, you need to move the pelvis back and forth, placing the feet 15 cm apart. It is important to realize the difference between a compressed pelvis, which automatically reduces growth and ugly rounds the back, and a pelvis set aside, straightening the spine. As part of this exercise, it is also useful to bend your knees, relax your pelvis and breathe as deeply as possible so that the wave reaches the lower torso.
Secondly, bioenergetics are advised to spread the feet by 20 cm, bend the legs, move the torso forward and relax. It is necessary to release the pelvis, inhale with the stomach and increase pressure on the pelvic floor. This should relax the sphincter. Then consciously tighten the anus, pelvis and buttocks. The tension will immediately rise several times. These movements will help develop sensitivity to your pelvis, make sexual sensations more obvious.

Exercise 4

The general dynamics of the body is often determined by the rotation of the head or the central transverse axis of the body, i.e. waist. This exercise repeat in the morning, 5-10 times. You need to stand up, bend your knees, spread your feet and look over your left shoulder so that your head turns as much as possible. The pose is held for several deep breaths and exhalations so that muscle tension is created from the skull to the back.
Then repeat the turns to the right. You can also raise your arms with your elbows apart and turn either to the right or to the left, keeping the spinal muscles and the waist in tension.
Don't forget about abdominal breathing and shifting your weight to the front of your feet.

Exercise 5

Do regular facial work as well. Bioenergetics are advised to get up and push the chin for 30 seconds to strain the temporomandibular muscles. At the same time, you can move your jaw to the sides, feeling a slight pain in the back of the head. Then the mouth opens very wide so that 3 fingers fit in it.
After a few seconds, there is a period of relaxation of the chin, then it retracts. The task of a person is to clench his fists and shout “No!” convincingly.

Exercise-massage

Bioenergetics favors massage, which allows you to feel muscle tension in different parts body. Together with a partner, therapists recommend performing a back massage when the client is sitting cross-legged, and the assistant massages him from the edge of the shoulders to the spine, while kneeling behind.


You need to press a little with your hands, and also knock with the ribs of your palms in places where energy tension is felt. You can even tap hard spots with your knuckles. Neck massage is also performed, but only works right hand, while the left one holds the head.
With a headache, bioenergetics are allowed to massage with three fingers a line from the lower part of the skull to the top of the head. And the so-called walking partner on the back of the patient is very useful, although this exercise has many contraindications.

Exercise 7

Bioenergetic therapy offers not only dynamic exercises, but also relaxation sessions. Sit somewhere in a quiet corner, press parallel feet to the floor, raise your head. Let your hands rest on your knees. Feel the contact between your buttocks and the surface underneath you.
Close your eyelids, think about your breath, allowing the process of inhalation and exhalation to flow freely. A wave runs through the body in each cycle of breathing, which goes on top of the breaths, and vice versa. On exhalation, the wave should reach the base of the abdomen and pelvis, so you need to let go of the stomach, and lower the buttocks as much as possible.
The exercise is performed for 10 minutes, while the pulsation in the body and the connection with the Universe are felt.

Lowen's bioenergetic exercises involve various manipulations with the body, the purpose of which is to understand oneself and one's character through energy and metabolic processes in the body.

These experiences synthesize consciousness therapy with physical exercises in order to resolve emotional and psychological difficulties and increase resistance to stressful situations in life.
Working for muscle tone of your torso, it is important to never forget that the activity of consciousness always reflects the state of the body shell, as well as vice versa. Therefore, structured pressure on different parts of the body, as well as touching touches, always help not only to relax the muscles, but to release your vitality from the shackles of social and personal restrictions.

Bioenergetic analysis, or bioenergetics, is an effective one, developed in the 40-50s. student of Wilhelm Reich, psychotherapist Alexander Lowen. When developing the method, Lowen took Reich's vegetative therapy as a basis and supplemented it with special exercises that allow you to accumulate energy in areas of the body bound by the "muscle shell" and, through overstrain, relax the tight muscles.

The essence of bioenergetic analysis

The essence of bioenergetic analysis is to work with the body and mind, with the help of which the patient's emotional problems are eliminated, his energy potential is revealed and the ground is prepared for enjoying life. Work with the body and mind includes psychotherapy (verbal psychoanalysis), manual therapy techniques and special relaxation techniques.

Our body is the only objective reality

Alexander Lowen believed that any psychological problem arises from a disturbed perception of reality. The only objective reality for each of us is our body, therefore, in order to get rid of neuroses, it is necessary to concentrate as much as possible on own body. Analyzing the posture of a person, his facial expressions, postures and gestures, Lowen determined in which area of ​​the body there was muscle tension and with the help of special system exercises eliminated it.

Grounding Human Energy

Lowen paid great attention to the grounding of the patient's biopsychic (vegetative) energy. The absence of natural abdominal breathing, the perception of life through the mind, not the heart, social prohibitions on physical pleasure tear a person off the ground, take him away from reality. He starts to live top his body (mind, logic), which leads the body into a state of splitting (between sexuality and spirituality, conscious and unconscious, mind and body). In order to bring the upper and lower parts of the body into balance, it is necessary to temporarily move your senses to the abdomen and lower extremities. At the same time, it should be remembered that the center of our body, according to Lowen, is not the brain or genitals (as Reich believed), but our heart, which subordinates other organs. To avoid problems with the psyche, eliminate chronic tension in the body and establish close relationships with people, a person needs to learn how to receive and give his love.

How does chronic tension develop in the body?

According to Lowen, chronic tension in the body is the result of prohibitions and restrictions that are present in society. Following cultural and moral standards gives rise to an internal conflict in the human mind, the flow of energy in the body is disturbed. A person begins to suppress his desires, so part of the energy accumulates inside his body, fettering a certain muscle group. Bioenergetic analysis is aimed at releasing the energy "locked" in the body and directing it into a natural channel.

Human character according to Lowen

In Lowen's bioenergetics, a special place is given to the character of a person - the style of behavior with which he controls own desires and the pursuit of pleasure. It is the nature of a person at an unconscious level that most often leads to chronic tension in the body. In his practice, Lowen distinguished five main types of human character: schizoid (inadequate emotions), oral (inability to act independently), psychopathic (desire to dominate), masochistic (the habit of suffering), hysterical (frequent emotional outbursts, dramatized behavior).

Tension postures to relax the body

To ground a person, fill chronically tense areas of the body with energy and ultimately relax them, during a bioenergetic analysis session, the patient is recommended to use special exercises- tense postures. Being in one of these positions for a long time, a person increases the tension in the muscles to such an extent that sooner or later they relax. At the same time, the trembling that occurs during the exercise is an indicator of muscle energy. In Lowen's bioenergetics, the patient is most often recommended to concentrate on the pelvic segment of the muscle shell (see the article ""). By directing attention to the pelvis and legs (“pelvic arch”), a person grounds his energy and, according to Lowen, deprives his “ego structure” of support.

Exercise "Arch of Lowen"

This exercise serves as a powerful tool for grounding a person's energy, as well as the best indicator of chronic tension in the body. If it is present, you will not be able to complete the "Arch of Lowen". So, we recommend checking yourself.

Stand up straight, spread your legs so that there is a distance of 45-50 cm between them. Point the toes of the feet slightly inward. Bend your knees as far as possible without lifting your heels off the floor. Squeeze your hands into fists and rest them on your lower back. After that, bend back slightly. Try to hold the pose for as long as possible. Breathe not from your chest, but from your belly. After 5-10 minutes of standing like this, you should feel trembling in your legs. If it appears, then the exercise was performed correctly. You felt your legs - grounded the body, and as a result, became more whole, rooted, relaxed.

Benefits of Bioenergetic Analysis

The main benefit of using this method is as follows:

• A person's behavior patterns change (especially in conflict situations).
• The attitude towards oneself and the world changes (and therefore, the character also changes).
• Emotional mood improves (neuroses and depression pass).
• Energy blocks are eliminated (a person becomes vigorous, energetic).
• The whole body is healed (posture changes, breathing acquires a natural depth).
• A person begins to see reality as it is (and not through the prism of stereotypes and fears).
• Learning to build harmonious relationship with people (to receive and give love).
• Restores the ability to enjoy life (liberates oneself).
• Simultaneously solves a series psychological problems(usually occurring at a young age).