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

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. notReviewed publishedVersion