Fear of Life. Dr. Alexander Lowen M.D.
fifties. “But,” Margaret said, “my father was equally self-destructive, working twenty hours a day and never taking time for pleasure. He was Christ, the martyr. He died of a heart attack in his forties.”
She added, “My father was a burden to me. I felt I had to save him. He was in my mind all the time. He made me very sad and unhappy. I could never reach him. I remember looking at him when he was suffering from heart trouble, and he had such a pathetic look. It was actually worse than pathetic. It was the look of suffering. He was a sufferer. I need to help people.”
We cannot understand Margaret or her problem without a picture of the family situation in which she grew up. In that picture the most important elements are the personalities of the parents. They affect the child more by who they are than what they do. Children are very sensitive and pick up their parents’ moods, feelings, and unconscious attitudes by osmosis, as it were. This was especially true for Margaret since she was an only child. Her parents’ influence was unmitigated by the presence of other children. Consider the following.
“My mother said my father was a rough lover. I realize that I choose men who are somewhat like him in their suffering and in their rough intensity of sexual need. I don't see the suffering in these men until I get socked with it later. Then I find that I am taking care of them, helping them, and there is nothing in it for me. This is one way I am self-destructive. But I don't know if I could like anybody who is not suffering. My heart wouldn't open to that person. The last man I was involved with attempted suicide. I had a long line of men I had to help. It seems that if I can't do the neurotic thing, there is nothing else.”
What exactly was Margaret's relationship to her father? She says that her mother told her that she was very close to her father until the age of four or five. She has no memory of that closeness nor any knowledge of why it ended. All she remembers is that her father was beyond reach. She felt close to him in her heart but there was no contact between them. “It was like in a dream. I am still in that dream. I relate to men on this basis. I build enormous fantasies of what life would be like with them, only to discover after a few meetings that they couldn't possibly fulfill my dreams.”
From the above it is clear that in her contacts with men Margaret is looking for the kind of relationship that she had with her father before the age of five. It was a search for a lost paradise. She was trying to find her Shangri-la. She asked me, “Why am I always getting cuddled by men at bars? I must give off something.” Her manner and her expression indicated that she, too, was a sufferer. Just as she is drawn to those who suffer, so they are drawn to her. Each hopes the other can relieve his suffering, but each only brings suffering to the other. Neither has any joy to offer.
From the above it is obvious that Margaret suffered a severe loss at about the age of five, when the loving relationship she had with her father ended. The depressive tendency is conditioned by such a loss.1 Undoubtedly, there had been an earlier loss of love in her relationship with her mother, but the early loss had been mitigated by the warmth of her contact with her father. When that ended, Margaret was lost. She survived by a great effort of will, manifested today in the set of a grim and determined jaw. But memories of the time when she glowed in the warmth of her father's love are still reflected in the momentary brightening of her eyes and face.
What happened to cause the destruction of the loving relationship she had with her father? Why did it have such a devastating effect upon her personality? Margaret had no memories of that time. They were completely repressed. However, she has had many years of psychoanalysis and is familiar with the oedipal problem. During our discussion of this subject, she remarked, “I don't remember any sexual feelings for my father, but during my analysis I had a dream of sleeping with him. Having been in analysis for some time, I felt that I could have this dream without thinking I was crazy. However, in the dream I felt I couldn't let go. I couldn't really enjoy it.”
Margaret still doesn't enjoy sex. She still can't let go and have an orgasm. She uses sex for contact and closeness. She cannot give in to her sexual feelings because she is afraid they would overwhelm her and drive her crazy. I shall explore this aspect of the fear of sex in a later chapter. My intention here is to show the relation between the neurotic character and the oedipal problem.
What really went on in her family? What was the relation between the parents? Margaret said, “I used to have the fantasy as a child that my parents were very close to each other and that I was the outsider. I felt isolated. Then, as I grew older, I saw that my mother was alone and my father, too. I realized that she talked about him as if he was a stranger.” She did recollect a scene in which her father tried to throw her mother out of the window, but she doesn't know why. We can guess. Like so many other marriages, her parents’ relationship had started on the high note of romance but ended on the bitter one of frustration. This is the terrain in which the oedipal problem develops. The frustrated parent generally turns to the child of the opposite sex for sympathy and affection.
The feelings between Margaret and her father were very deep. Despite the barrier between them, he was close to her heart and she to his. Margaret said that she was told that when she won some awards at school and church he cried. Why was any expression of these feelings restrained? There is only one answer. They had become sexual on both sides. The danger of incest seemed real. The father had to withdraw from any contact with the girl, and she had to be made to suppress her sexuality since it threatened him.
The child's sexual desire for the parent is an expression of her natural aliveness. The child is innocent until the parents project their sexual guilt upon her. Margaret was the bad one because her sexuality was alive and free. It had to be beaten out of her, which her mother did literally with a horsewhip with which her father used to train horses. She was forced to deny her body and invest her energy in schoolwork. The father didn't protect her because he felt too guilty to interfere. She was effectively broken as one breaks the wild, free spirit of a horse so it can be ridden by a man. Since Eve, the female has been regarded as the temptress. This bias reflects the double standard of morality characteristic of patriarchal culture. In the past, Western society has found it necessary to suppress the woman's sexuality more than that of the man.
We can understand now why Margaret developed her neurotic character. She was not allowed to relate to her father on a sexual level, and that taboo became ingrained into her personality and extended to all men. She can be the child who wants to be cuddled or she can be the understanding and sympathetic helper who will try to ease a man's suffering. Since neither of these approaches fulfills her need for a sexual relationship (which is more than just having sex), she becomes depressed. I don't believe that she can overcome her depressive tendency until she regains her sexuality. Having lost her sexuality, she lost her life. To be sexual is to be alive, and to be alive is to be sexual. In subsequent chapters I will show what is involved in working through this problem.
Margaret's case is not unique. It may differ from the average in the severity of the beatings she received, in the degree of repressed sexuality in the family, and in the special form her neurotic character assumed. Yet it is typical of what goes on in modern families, namely, the incestuous feelings between parents and children, the rivalries, jealousies, and threats to the child. It is also typical of the way the oedipal problem shapes the neurotic character of the individual. Here is a different case, which shows many similarities with Margaret's, although it involves a man.
Robert was a highly successful architect who consulted me because he was depressed. His depression was caused by the breakup of his marriage. When I asked why the marriage failed, he said that his wife complained that there was no communication between them, that he withdrew from contact, and that he was sexually passive. He admitted the truth of her complaints. He recognized that he had great difficulty expressing feelings. He had undergone psychoanalytic treatment earlier for a number of years. The treatment had helped him somewhat, but his emotional responsiveness was still very weak.
Robert was a handsome man in his late forties. He had a well-built and well-proportioned body and regular facial features. When I looked at him, he smiled too quickly. I sensed that eye contact embarrassed him. On closer examination I saw that his eyes were watchful and without feeling. The most notable aspect of his body, however was its tightness and rigidity. Without his clothes he looked like a Greek statue. Dressed, he could be taken