Joy: The Surrender to the Body and to Life (Compass)

Surrender to your body and recover joy

Alexander Lowen, famous student of Wilhelm Reich and founder of Bioenergetics, reveals in this book how to reclaim a natural, childlike state of joy through exercises that revive the body's vitality and liberate the energy of suppressed feelings. Using examples from four decades of clinical practice, Lowen shows how painful emotional experiences—from sexual abuse and fear of dying to the anger and heartbreak all human beings experience in life—are manifested in bodily symptoms. He then instructs readers how to listen for and answer the unique signals in the body that serve as internal cries for freedom. The vibrant health that results has a wide range of holistic benefits for the total being, including enhanced sexual pleasure and heightened spirituality. Joy, the culmination of Lowen’s life work, is a wonderfully hopeful and transformational guide from one of the pioneers of body/mind therapy.