Book excerpt: The Betrayal of the Body is Alexander Lowen's pioneering study of the mind-body split. Lowen describes the way people deny the reality, needs, and feelings of their bodies. This denial leads to the development of the division between mind and body, creating an over-charged ego obsessed with thinking at the expense of feeling and being. This book illustrates the energetic factors behind the split, the factors that produce it, and the proven therapeutic techniques that are available to treat it. Lowen further explores the mind-body duality in the individual and its parallel duality and dysfunction in society between culture and nature, and between thinking and feeling.