Catharsis in psychotherapy: A new perspective.

Abstract

Contemporary thinking about catharsis in psychotherapy is still dominated by Breuer and Freud's work with the cathartic method. Psychoanalysts take the fact that Freud abandoned catharsis as evidence of its ineffectiveness, while the emotive therapies developed in the 1960s returned to Freud's earliest view that neurosis results from repressed affect and can be cured by cathartic uncovering. Emotional memories continue to be thought of as foreign bodies lodged in the human psyche and requiring purgation. Unfortunately, this view divorces people from responsibility for their conduct and encourages a fractionation of human experience into feeling, thought, and action. In the current presentation, emotion is construed instead as a class of blocked or partially blocked actions, and in terms of a two-stage adaptational process. Implications of this view for psychotherapeutic practice are proposed, emphasizing richer selfexpression and fuller appreciation of the consequences of responsible vs. disclaimed actions.Most current thinking about catharsis derives from Breuer and Freud's cathartic method and from the emotiove therapies of the 1960s-either Requests for reprints should be sent to

The fading affect bias: Effects of social disclosure to an interactive versus non-responsive listener

“…Emotional processing involves emotional expression, cognitive changes and a conversion from negative to positive feelings (Nichols & Efran, 1985), and so could be involved in enhancing positive and minimising negative emotional intensity. Receiving feedback during social disclosure could have encouraged participants to begin emotionally processing the socially disclosed events, as evidenced by the increased percentages of emotion terms in their written descriptions.…”

Efficacy of Abreactive Ego State Therapy for PTSD:Trauma Resolution, Depression, and Anxiety

“…However, when Nichols and Zax (1977) conducted a controlled study involving actual patients, they concluded quite the opposite and found "definite support for the effectiveness of emotive techniques in stimulating catharsis and at least partial support for the effectiveness of catharsis to produce improvement in psychotherapy" (see Watkins & Barabasz, 2008, p. 64).…”

An Outcome Study of Primal Therapy

“…Catharsis has long been a well-known ingredient in psychotherapy [1], Various behavior therapy techniques emphasize emotional abreaction. which is related to catharsis.…”

“…Janov's [2][3][4] primal therapy is one of these forms, which has been claimed unique in technique and efficiency. There are very few reports on controlled studies of cathartic forms of psychotherapy [1]; however, one comparative study claims better results with a cathartic technique in brief psychotherapy [5].…”

“…Psychotherapy which emphasizes cathartic techniques have long tradi tions [ 1 ]. Janov's [2][3][4] primal therapy is one of these forms, which has been claimed unique in technique and efficiency.…”