Standing on both Legs: A Bioenergetic Perspective on the Family, Gender Roles and the Development of the Self in the 21st Century

Autori

  • Garry Cockburn

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30820/0743-4804-2008-18-11

Parole chiave:

Hermeneutics, Otherness of the Embodied Self, Social Ethics

Abstract

How does Bioenergetics, which is focused on the body of the individual, articulate its concerns about the family and gender roles? And how can we add new ideas to Bioenergetics without betraying Alexander Lowen’s essential ideas, whose integrity he strongly protected? The model of ‘suspicion and recovery’ of Paul Ricoeur, the French philosopher, allows us to discover what is unexamined, unexplored or repressed in Lowen’s ideas on the body and the self. This hermeneutic perspective enables us to examine the otherness of the embodied self in a way that honors Lowen’s genius and his emphasis on the body. It also provides a way to critique the historical limitations of Lowen’s views on the development of the self, the family and gender roles, and provides a pathway for incorporating new knowledge into Bioenergetics.

Biografia autore

Garry Cockburn

Garry Cockburn BSW(Hons)., CBT., was born in New Zealand, trained as a Catholic priest in Sydney, Australia in the 1960s, and then undertook post-graduate studies in theology in Rome. After leaving the priesthood, he qualified as a social worker and worked in the New Zealand Government child abuse agency for nearly 30 years. He has worked as a social work consultant in the field of child abuse and child, adolescent and family mental health. He has published on the topic of a phenomenological approach to child protection legislation in New Zealand. He finished his Bioenergetic training in 1995, and is in private practice as a Bioenergetic psychotherapist with his partner, Pye Bowden, in their business, Mind & Body.
011-026 36138

##submission.downloads##

Come citare

Cockburn, G. (2022). Standing on both Legs: A Bioenergetic Perspective on the Family, Gender Roles and the Development of the Self in the 21st Century. Bioenergetic Analysis, 18(1), 11–26. https://doi.org/10.30820/0743-4804-2008-18-11

Fascicolo

V. 18 N. 1 (2008)

Sezione

Articles

Licenza

Creative Commons License

Questo lavoro è fornito con la licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 4.0 Internazionale.

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.