Bioenergetics is a therapeutic technique to help a person get back together with his body and to help him enjoy to the fullest degree possible the life of his body. This emphasis on the body includes sexuality, which is one of its basic functions. But it also includes the even more basic functions of breathing, moving, feeling and self expression. A person who doesn't breathe deeply reduces the life of his body. If he doesn't move freely, he restricts the life of his body. If he doesn't feel fully, he narrows the life of his body. And if his self-expression is constricted, he limits the life of his body.
True, these restrictions on living are not voluntarily self-imposed. They develop as a means of survival in a home environment and culture that denies body values in favor of power, prestige and possessions. Nevertheless, we accept these restrictions on our lives by failing to question them, and thus, we betray our bodies. In the process we also subvert the natural environment our bodies depend on for their well-being. It is equally true that most people are unconscious of the bodily handicaps under which they labor—handicaps that have become second nature to them, part of their habitual way of being in the world. In effect, most people go through life on a limited budget of energy and feeling.
The goal of bioenergetics is to help people regain their primary nature, which is the condition of being free, the state of being graceful and the quality of being beautiful. Freedom, grace and beauty are the natural attributes of every animal organism. Freedom is the absence of inner restraint to the flow of feeling, grace is the expression of this flow in movement, while beauty is a manifestation of the inner harmony such a flow engenders. They denote a healthy body and also, therefore, a healthy mind.
The primary nature of every human being is to be open to life and love. Being guarded, armored, distrustful and enclosed is second nature in our culture. It is the means we adopt to protect ourselves against being hurt, but when such attitudes become characterological or structured in the personality, they constitute a more severe hurt and create a greater crippling than the one originally suffered.
Bioenergetics aims to help a person open his heart to life and love. This is no easy task. The heart is well protected in its bony cage, and the approaches to it are strongly defended both psychologically and physically. These defences must be understood and worked through if our aim is to be achieved. But if the objective is not gained, the result is tragic. To go through life with a closed heart is like taking an ocean voyage locked in the hold of the ship. The meaning, the adventure, the excitement and the glory of living are beyond one's vision and reach.
Alexander Lowen, Bioenergetics, 1975
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Actually, bioenergetics is an umbrella that covers many disciplines. The term, "Bioenergetics," was first coined by Russian researchers who worked on [bioenergetic] devices that can influence the cellular metabolism through suitable modulated radio and light frequencies and thus repair genetic defects.
Therefore, bioenergetics is a relatively new word (within the century) that infers to the application of advanced technology within certain fields such as psionics, psychotronics, and radionics which achieve biodynamic resonance. The most famous researcher of biodynamic resonance in the U.S. was Dr. Royal Raymond Rife with his plasma wave device among other inventions.
But bioenergetics is also inferred when we use different methods for manipulating bioenergy. In Chi Kung, we manipulate the chi through mental focus upon internal energy and breathing exercises. The moving meditation of tai chi chuan was also designed for this purpose of achieving biodynamic resonance.
Understanding bioenergetics is best achieved through experience. The "soft" style of martial arts such as tai chi chuan are probably the best methods of doing that for the general public.
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