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This document provides a foreword and preface for the book "Pleasure: A Creative Approach to Life" by Al Lowen. The foreword discusses how the book explores pleasure and power, and how pursuing power over pleasure can lead to unhappiness. It notes the book offers understanding and exercises to expand one's capacity for pleasure and find more self-fulfillment. The preface states the book will examine how the ego restricts pleasure and creativity in its pursuit of recognition and status over inner development and connection to one's true self and body. It aims to help readers live more freely and feel more fully through this approach.

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Patricia Zaw
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417 views

Pleasure Text

This document provides a foreword and preface for the book "Pleasure: A Creative Approach to Life" by Al Lowen. The foreword discusses how the book explores pleasure and power, and how pursuing power over pleasure can lead to unhappiness. It notes the book offers understanding and exercises to expand one's capacity for pleasure and find more self-fulfillment. The preface states the book will examine how the ego restricts pleasure and creativity in its pursuit of recognition and status over inner development and connection to one's true self and body. It aims to help readers live more freely and feel more fully through this approach.

Uploaded by

Patricia Zaw
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Pleasure

A Creative Approach to Life


Foreword

Foreword

i
Pleasure

Also subtle, is the pleasure derived from work. Unfortunately,


most people derive little pleasure from their jobs. On the other hand,
for many, career and work is a great source of pleasure. It is not simple
to understand the nature of their experience of that feeling state. The
“pleasure” people gain from their work may be healthy if it is integrated
into a whole life, balanced by other pursuits. But if work dominates
one’s life, it is an addiction: a substitution of a seeming pleasure for
life’s real pleasures, while degrading one’s real pleasures as an attempt
to avoid a painful or feared reality.
Another source of pleasure is derived from achievement, success,

Clearly different from the excitement of physical activity, or the


viscerally calming and pleasing creative activities of play and work, the

other sources of pleasure originating from the body, the pleasure from
success, winning, and acquisition is derived from the realm of ideas and
ideals of the mind. It may have a bodily affect, like when one receives
a big promotion creating bodily excitement. Conversely, a severe drop

sleeplessness, even without any actual impact on one’s lifestyle.


Everyone knows what “pleasure” is. It is like happiness, and fun,
and creativity. It is familiar, like an old worn shirt, comfortable and
unremarkable. Pleasure is something we all feel we know about, like
sex and breathing, but in fact, we know very little. As familiar as we
are with pleasure, and as much as we like the idea of pleasure, in reality
too many people’s lives are governed by power, not pleasure. I found
pleasure was not an easy subject to capture! I had to re-read the book!
If asked “what is the opposite of pleasure?”…I suspect most would
answer that pain is the opposite of pleasure. However, Alexander Lowen
shows that power is the anti-thesis of pleasure. Pain, like pleasure, is
a feeling state in the spectrum between agony and ecstasy. Except for
relatively few unfortunate individuals, no one seeks out pain unless it
serves to gain pleasure or power in the future.

ii
Foreword

Most people are motivated to seek pleasure, and/or acquire power,


or protection from power. If the seeking and acquisition of power and
wealth enhances’ one’s self, expanding one’s freedom and security,
power and wealth may be used constructively and creatively. If on the
other hand, power, wealth and status are substitutes for one’s self, that

only to enable one to stand out in the crowd as a “mass individual,” not
a true individual standing apart from the crowd.
While pleasure and power are not necessarily mutually exclusive,
for those who substitute the pursuit of power for the pursuit of pleasure
and happiness, Lowen shows how and why pleasure is so elusive, and
why there is so much more power and pain than pleasure in this 21st
Century.
When power is substituted for pleasure, and the ego replaces
the self, power and wealth become destructive. The pleasure derived

exercise of power is repeated over and over again as a futile attempt to


compensate for insecurity, emptiness of self, and proof of superiority….
all driven by a lack of pleasure.
In the current state of affairs, where power and money have become
ends in themselves, and despite unprecedented power and wealth, yet
never enough for many individuals, social and environmental insecurity
and stress are also unprecedented. In my mind, this is evidence that the
extremely powerful and wealthy leaders of business and government

expression, and pleasure. A condition commonly known as “greed,” it


imperils us all.
I am proud that my father’s book continues to be relevant and
fresh after more than 40 years in publication. With its focus on the
human body and psychology, it is timeless and classic. The work of
my father’s mentor Wilhelm Reich, and the work of my father have not

iii
Pleasure

where great knowledge has been gained in just the past few years, Reich
and Lowen recognized decades ago the association of the sympathetic
autonomic system with contraction, and the parasympathetic system
with expansion….fundamental to the pulsatory nature of life, yet
unrecognized even today.
A practical problem solver and psychiatrist, Al Lowen’s “Pleasure:
A Creative Approach to Life” offers understanding, exercise, and
clinical examples to enable one to learn the factors that restrict and
obstruct one’s capacity for pleasure, how to expand one’s experience of
pleasure, and gain more of one’s self for oneself. It is through the feeling
connection with one’s body that one’s self is found. It is the connection
with the body that aligns the ego with the unconscious, the autonomic
body functions, nature and all living things. It is the source for limitless
creativity beyond imagination, where, in the words of the song, there are
no problems, only solutions.

and desires it doesn’t understand, and limited in it’s narrow conscious


awareness, it is capable only of seeking the recognition of others by any
means available, often life-negating, destructive, and exploitive…not
constructive, creative, and life enhancing.
From you the reader, and the therapist helping people, to the student
of psychology, sociology, and/or political science, this study covers the
subject of pleasure and creativity to help you, an individual, to live more
freely and feel more fully; and, to help you, me, and we to live together

challenged leaders.
It is fascinating and counter-intuitive, but you cannot study pleasure
without learning about power.
I believe you will enjoy my father’s work “Pleasure: A Creative
Approach to Life.” It is indeed a pleasure to read!

Frederic Lowen

Vermont, USA
iv
Preface

PREFACE

But ye, unfallen sons of heavenly duty,


Rejoice ye in the rich and living beauty:

Envelope ye in bonds of love and grace;

Faust1

1
Pleasure

sustaining and creative force in his personality, his hope (or illusion)

translation of Faust,2

3
He has

2
Preface

the personality by the ego is a diabolical perversion of the nature of

loyal and obedient servant. The body, as opposed to the ego, desires

creative life.

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