Catharsis
Catharsis is from the Ancient Greek word κάθαρσις, katharsis, meaning "purification" or "cleansing".
For other uses, see Catharsis (disambiguation).
It is most commonly used today to refer to the purification and purgation of thoughts and emotions by way of expressing them. The desired result is an emotional state of renewal and restoration.[1][2]
In dramaturgy, the term usually refers to arousing negative emotion in an audience, which then expels it, making them feel happier.[3]
In Greek the term originally had a physical meaning only. This began with its use to describe purification practices. The first recorded uses of the term being used in the mental sense was by Aristotle in the Politics and Poetics, comparing the effects of music and tragedy on the mind of a spectator to the effect of catharsis on the body.[4][5]
The term is additionally used in Greek to refer to the spiritual purging process that occurs in the Christian Purgatory. Greek Neoplatonists also used the term to refer to spiritual purification.
Catharism was a term used by outsiders to describe the thinking of a Christian movement so named because of its interest in purity.
In psychology, the term is associated with Freudian psychoanalysis where it specifically relates to the expression of buried trauma (the cause of a neurosis), bringing it into consciousness and releasing it, increasing happiness.
The term also has uses relating to the physical body. In medicine, it can refer to the evacuation of the catamenia ("monthlies", menstrual fluid) from someone. Similarly, a cathartic is a substance that accelerates the defecation of faeces.
Purification ritual[edit]
The term "kathairein" and its relatives appear in the work of Homer, referring to purification rituals. The words "kathairein" and "katharos" became common in Greek. It is thought that they are derived from the Semitic word "qatar" ("fumigate").[6]
Aithiopis, a later epic set in the Trojan War cycle, narrates the purification of Achilles after his murder of Thersites.[7]
Later, the Greeks took certain new measures to cleanse away blood-guilt—"blood is purified through blood",[7] a process in the development of Hellenistic culture in which the oracle of Delphi took a prominent role. The classic example—Orestes—belongs to tragedy, but the procedure given by Aeschylus is ancient: the blood of a sacrificed piglet is allowed to wash over the blood-polluted man, and running water washes away the blood.[8] The identical ritual is represented, Burkert informs us, on a krater found at Canicattini, wherein it is shown being employed to cure the daughters of Proetus from their madness, caused by some ritual transgression.[9]
To the question of whether the ritual obtains atonement for the subject, or just healing, Burkert answers: "To raise the question is to see the irrelevance of this distinction".[9]
Platonism[edit]
In Platonism, catharsis is part of the soul's progressive ascent to knowledge. It is a means to go beyond the senses and embrace the pure world of the intelligible.[10] Specifically for the Neoplatonists Plotinus and Porphyry, catharsis is the elimination of passions. This leads to a clear distinction in the virtues. In the second tractate of the first Ennead, Plotinus lays out the difference between the civic virtues and the cathartic virtues and explains that the civic, or political, virtues are inferior. They are a principle of order and beauty and concern material existence. (Enneads, I,2,2) Although they maintain a trace of the Absolute Good, they do not lead to the unification of the soul with the divinity. As Porphyry makes clear, their function is to moderate individual passions and allow for peaceful coexistence with others. (Sentences, XXXIX) The purificatory, or cathartic, virtues are a condition for assimilation to the divinity. They separate the soul from the sensible, from everything that is not its true self, enabling it to contemplate the Mind (Nous).[11]
Active and conversational psychological[edit]
Psychoanalysis[edit]
Jakob Bernays was a German philosopher who wrote books about Aristotle's views of drama in 1857 and 1880. These prompted a lot of writing about catharsis in the German speaking world.[2]
In this environment, Austrian psychiatrist Josef Breuer developed a cathartic method of treatment using hypnosis for persons who have intensive hysteria in the early 1890s. While under hypnosis, Breuer's patients were able to recall traumatic experiences, and through the process of expressing the original emotions that had been repressed and forgotten (and had formed neuroses), they were relieved of their neurotic hysteria symptoms. Breuer became a mentor to fellow Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (who was married to Bernays' niece). Breuer and Freud released the book Studies on Hysteria in 1895. This book explained the cathartic method to the world, and was the first published work about psychoanalysis.
