You Are Your Body

Considerations on the Relation between Self and Body

Authors

  • Christoph Helferich

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30820/0743-4804-2022-32-135

Keywords:

western dualism, phenomenology, lived body, embodiment, nurturing contact

Abstract

The essay examines Alexander Lowen’s basic assumption that «you are your body”. Many aspects of our culture, however, contradict this statement, identifying the ego with the linguistic-mental processes of the brain. According to the author, the phenomenological perspective, focusing on subjective experience, allows us to conceive the person as a «living organism”, a perspective that therefore supports Lowen’s original assumption. A brief clinical case illustrates this thesis.

Author Biography

Christoph Helferich

Christoph Helferich was born in Germany in 1950, and has lived and worked in Italy since 1984. He is CBT, supervisor and local trainer of the Italian Bioenergetic Society, la Società Italiana di Analisi Bioenergetica (SIAB).
135-144 36181

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How to Cite

Helferich, C. (2022). You Are Your Body: Considerations on the Relation between Self and Body. Bioenergetic Analysis, 32(1), 135–144. https://doi.org/10.30820/0743-4804-2022-32-135

Issue

Vol. 32 No. 1 (2022)

Section

Articles

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). This license allows private use and unmodified distribution, but prohibits editing and commercial use (further information can be found at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). The terms of the Creative Commons licence only apply to the original material. The reuse of material from other sources (marked with a reference) such as charts, illustrations, photos and text extracts may require further permission for use from the respective copyrights holder.