POYcliatheraPYVokime22/Spring1985/NumberI
CATHARSIS IN PSYCHOTHERAPY: A NEW PERSPECTIVE
MICHAEL P. NICHOLS
Albany Medical College
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
self- expression and fuller
appreciation of the
46
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 Michael P. Nichols,
Department of Psychology, Albany Medical College, Albany,
NY 12208. The authors express their appreciation to Etiony
Aldarondo and Craig Caputo for their assistance in the prep-
aration of this manuscript.
JAY S. EFRAN
Temple University
accepting or reacting against the common premise
of these two high-water marks in the history of
cathartic treatment. Both of these developments
were based on the notion that emotions needed
to be purged to achieve psychological well-being.
Most psychoanalytic writers now view Breuer and
Freud's early position as merely a footnote in the
evolution of psychoanalysis, and the developments
of the 1960s are widely perceived as part of a
misguided shift from rationalism to emotionalism.
Despite the bad press cathartic methods have re-
ceived of late, there is some empirical evidence
linking emotional expressiveness to therapeutic
gain (Nichols 1974; Pierce et al, , 1983), and
even if one rejects entirely the purgative theories
(Bin- stock, 1973), more needs to be said about
whether catharsis has a legitimate role in
contemporary psychotherapeutic practice.
History
Catharsis in Drama and Ritual
Long before Breuer & Freud (1895/1955) de-
veloped their cathartic technique, there was an
ancient tradition of catharsis in drama, ritual, and
healing. Catharsis, used deliberately or unwittingly
to change behavior, played a prominent role in
Aristotle's concept of the theater (Aristotle, 1951),
ancient religious and magical healing rituals
(Malinowsky, 1955), mesmerism and hypno-
therapy (Brenman & Gill, 1947), drug-induced
catharsis for traumatic neuroses of war (Watkins,
1949), religious revivals (McLoughlin, 1959), and
rituals of mourning (Goren, 1965). The list is too
long to elaborate here (see Nichols & Mix, 1977;
Scheff, 1979) but some implications from the long
history of cathartic rituals are directly relevant to
our discussion.
Debate over the effect of catharsis dates back
at least to Plato, the ultimate rationalist, who con-
demned theatrical drama for arousing the passions
and thereby undermining the State. His pupil,
Aristotle (1951), responded by praising the theater
for its cathartic function, saying that it is therapeutic

because it directly presents "incidents arousing
pity and fear in such as way as to accomplish a
purgation (Katharsis) of such emotions (p.
296)." This dispute illustrates two opposing
views of catharsis, which continue to the present
day. The question remains, Is catharsis a way of
provoking the passions, or of purging them? The
answer, as we shall see, turns out to be:
Neither.
When catharsis was used deliberately in various
healing rituals the rationale was based upon the
Aristotelian notion of catharsis as purgation and
rebirth into a purified state. Even when catharsis
was achieved unwittingly in the process of various
religious and magic ceremonies, it was reported
to produce a feeling of relief and clarified thinking
(Nichols & Zax, 1977).
Healing rituals and religious rites were preceded
by the expectation that catharsis would occur, and
began with various devices to overcome resistance
to emotional release. Visitors to Mesmer's "ba-
guet" were primed by the fantastic tales told of
the procedure and by the elaborate staging of
Mesmer's highly theatrical performances. Shamans
and folk healers typically began their healing cer-
emonies by performing feats of magic to dem-
onstrate their power, heighten expectancies of
success, and generate an emotionally charged at-
mosphere. Once primed, emotional arousal was
enhanced by drum beating, chanting, shrieking,
and convulsive dancing. Ordinary social restraint
was further weakened through the use of alcoholic
drinks, narcotics, and psychedelic mushrooms.
These ritualized ceremonies enabled participants
to shed traditional inhibitions and depart from
social norms which called for emotional restraint
by emphasizing that the participants were not re-
sponsible for their behavior. The emotions ex-
pressed and the impulses and motives displayed
could be attributed to demons within, which were
believed to be called forth and purged in these
rites. Although they apparently were therapeutic
(Nichols & Zax, 1977), these cathartic ceremonies
did not work by exorcising demons —either in
the form of evil spirits or repressed affects. Instead,
they provided a culturally sanctioned occasion for
experiencing and expressing significant but tatoo
thoughts and feelings.
From the perspective of modem psychotherapists
interested in lasting personality change, a major
drawback of these cathartic rites is their infrequency
and ritualized nature. Because the rituals are iso-
lated from everyday experience, catharsis is in-
sulated from, rather than incorporated into, daily
living. More important, there is only limited ac-
Catharsis in Psychotherapy
ceptance of primitive impulses, which needed to
be rationalized—seen as involuntary and magical,
rather than as intrinsic and natural. Some modern
cathartic procedures, including a number of en-
counter group exercises, fail their participants in
much the same way by limiting emotional expres-
sion to isolated, esoteric contexts, and providing
little rationale for integrating such experiences
into the overall pattern of one's day-to-day living
(Lieberman et al., 1973).
The Cathartic Method
The "cathartic technique" developed by Breuer
and Freud is the well-known beginning of both
psychoanalysis and modem emotive psychotherapy.
In the course of treating Fraulein Anna O.'s myriad
complaints, Breuer serendipitously discovered that
severe hysterical symptoms were relieved when
she inexperienced traumatic events under hypnosis
(Breuer & Freud, 1895/1955). Encouraging his
patient to associate to the origins of her symptoms
and permitting her to describe these events and
express the accompanying feelings without inter-
ruption seemed sufficient to resolve the symptoms.
The case history contains the basic principles of
early psychoanalysis: Neurotic symptoms are based
on buried conflictual feelings, which can be re-
covered through the abreactive process. Little is
required of the therapist other than to not interfere
with the process of emotional release.
It is significant that Breuer hit upon the cathartic
method by chance and that it worked with little
input from him. That catharsis seemed just to
happen, once released and not blocked, suggests
that it is a natural and powerful mechanism. This
contention is further supported by the fact that
several other therapists have described their own
discovery of cathartic therapy as occurring sim-
ilarly. They were surprised by a patient's sudden
and vigorous expression of emotion, and found
that if they just let it happen without interference,
the process was profoundly therapeutic. Jackins,
who developed reevaluation counseling (1962),
Janov, who developed primal therapy (1970),
Casriel, who developed new identity therapy
(1972), and Moreno, who developed psychodrama
(1958), have all described this experience in prac-
tically identical terms.
After hearing Breuer's account of the treatment
of Anna 0., Freud began to use the cathartic method
himself, and the two collaborated in writing up
their findings (Breuer & Freud, 1895/1955).
48

Treatment of hysterical symptoms required that
patients by hypnotized and then urged to recall
the events associated with the onset of symptoms.
Breuer & Freud wrote:
We found, at first to our great surprise, that the individual
hysterical symptoms immediately disappeared without
returning if we succeeded in thoroughly awakening the
memories of the causal process with its accompanying
affect, and if the patient circumstantially discussed the process in
the most detailed manner and gave verbal expression to the
affect (p. 6).
Because they stressed that affect was associated
with the resurrection of traumatic memories, it is
commonly thought that theirs was an intensely
feeling-oriented treatment. This was apparently
not the case. A careful reading of Studies on Hys-
teria (Breuer & Freud, 1895/1955), as well as
subsequent papers by Freud, suggests that he was
always more concerned with uncovering' memories
than with promoting affective expression. Ther-
apeutic reminiscences were usually accompanied
by some feeling, but intense feeling expression
was never really considered essential to the treat-
ment. In Chapter IV, "On The Psychotherapy of
Hysteria," Freud made it clear that the undoing
of repression was always his primary aim; affect
was only a byproduct of removing resistances.
Catharsis in the Evolution of Psychoanalysis
The fact that Freud abandoned "the cathartic
method" is often taken as evidence that he found
catharsis to be an ineffective form of treatment.
However, he was never really an emotivist. He
was a seeker after memories, who saw affect as
a signal that critical memories were being un-
covered. Indeed, Freud may have been uncom-
fortable in the face of intense emotional display
(Jones, 1953).
When Freud found that remembering traumatic
childhood events did not produce lasting behavior
change, he rejected the traumatic theory of neurosis.
In its place he developed the conflict theory, which
states that it is not specific early experiences that
must be uncovered and verbalized, but disowned
feelings and impulses which must be recognized
and integrated into the personality. In short, Freud's
early work led him to reject a simple hydraulic
model of emotions. Feelings were not concrete
entities which can be stored up and then drained
off, but part of dispositions to action, to be rec-
ognized and given appropriate expression.
Freud used the cathartic method primarily as a
tool for overcoming repression. He abandoned it
because he thought he had found a more reliable
tool (free association), not because he made a
49
Catharsis in Psychotherapy
major transition from an emotional to a cognitive
form of treatment. Developments in technique
and theory often appear to progress in a circular
pattern. Thus, as Freud discovered free association,
he turned away from cathartic uncovering of the
traumatic origins of symptoms to discover "com-
plexes," or conflicts, which were seen as the root
of neurotic problems. The main goal of psycho-
analysis became overcoming resistances to recalling
past events so that conflicts between libidinal im-
pulses and repressing forces could be brought into
awareness. This change in emphasis led to further
deemphasis of the role of catharsis. No longer
was catharsis thought to be a fundamental element
in psychoanalysis, although it was still acknowl-
edged to play a subsidiary role.
In "The Dynamics of the Transference" (1912/
1959) Freud pointed out that the patient seeks
merely to discharge emotions, without under-
standing them. Psychoanalysis requires that the
emotions be made conscious and then analyzed.
Feelings must not only be expressed, but under-
stood; catharsis alone is not enough. However,
Freud's statement (1912/1959) that buried feelings
must be made actual and manifest, so they can
be dealt with directly, suggests that catharsis may
be a useful part of the process. Ferenczi (1930),
Rank (1945), and Reik (1948) all believed that
catharsis was not only useful, but essential to the
process.
Strachey (1943) instructed that the emergence
of small quantities of repressed feelings and im-
pulses is necessary so that they can be understood.
The danger of massive cathartic discharge is that
is may be overwhelming and tend to confirm the
danger of uncovering feelings, thus leading to a
redoubling of defenses. According to Strachey,
catharsis is a useful adjunct to analysis, and perhaps
even an inevitable accompaniment to "mutative
interpretations." Catharsis following an interpre-
tation is a sign that the interpretation has struck
home.
Bibring (1954) expressed similar views, re-
minding us that catharsis was only part of the
process of Freud's treatment and never intended
to be a "one-act therapy." When free association
replaced hypnosis, catharsis or emotional reliving
was considered less a directly curative agent than
a means of convincing patients of the reality of
their repressed impulses. What was at first thought
of as the principal therapeutic tool came to be
considered only as an adjunct to the process of

verifying insight acquired through interpretation.
As Fenichel (1945) put it, catharsis demonstrates
to the patient "the existence and intensity of his
emotions." Another way of stating this is that it
provides the patient with "a sense of conviction
about the reality of his unconscious processes"
(Greenson 1967). When cognitive awareness is
coupled with intense feeling, patients are more
likely to accept the significance of their insights.
In evaluating this view of catharsis it is important
to bear in mind that the catharsis being referred
to is talking about significant events with feeling,
and not the intense expression of feeling through
sobbing and yelling recommended by modern
emotivists (e.g., Casriel, 1972; Jackins, 1965;
Janov, 1970). "Verbalizing repressed affect" may
have quite different therapeutic potential than in-
tense and sustained' somatic-emotional discharge
(Nichols & Zax, 1977).
Most modem analysts also believe that catharsis
is a useful way to resolve symptoms that derive
from acutely traumatic incidents. Greenson (1967)
recommends that patients be encouraged to express
as much feeling as they can, in order to provide
sufficient relief to enable them to continue the
hard work of analysis. This sort of catharsis is
said to not only provide relief, but also prevent
present traumas from becoming pathogenic.
Catharsis also plays a more prominent role in
short-term dynamic psychotherapy (e.g., Dav-
anloo, 1980; Mann, 1973; Sifneos, 1979). These
workers have modified the analytic technique to
make it more active and cathartic. They believe
that, by becoming increasingly passive, psy-
choanalysts have needlessly lengthened the
duration of treatment. Short-term dynamic
psychotherapy is more anxiety-provoking (e.g.,
Sifneos, 1979) and cathartic (e.g., Davanloo,
1980) than longterm analytic therapy (e.g.,
Lang, 1973). Short- term dynamic therapists are
in the mainstream of psychoanalytic treatment,
but are more active in "releasing hidden feelings
by actively working on and interpreting
resistance or defenses; paying strict attention to
the transference relationships; and actively
making links between the transference and
significant people in the patient's current life and
past" (Davanloo, 1980, p. 45).
Modern Cathartic Therapies
As we have seen, Freud abandoned catharsis
and the traumatic theory in favor of free association
and the conflict theory of neurosis. Ironically,
many of the emotive therapies that were developed
as a reaction against psychoanalysis rest on vari-
Catharsis in Psychotherapy
ations of Freud's early idea that neurosis results
from repressed traumatic events and can be cured
by remembering and expressing the associated
affect (e.g., Janov, 1970).
The pioneer and intellectual leader of modern
cathartic therapy was undoubtedly Wilhelm Reich
(1949, 1960). Reich was the first to emphasize,
not singular dramatic abreactions, but sustained
catharsis over a prolonged course of psychotherapy.
Recent cathartic therapists have followed Reich's
emphasis on intense catharsis and have even bor-
rowed some of his techniques for achieving it.
Many, however, have overlooked his understanding
of the complexity and tenacity of psychological
defenses. The key to liberating feelings, as Reich
realized, is not to sneak past or bludgeon defenses,
but to wage a prolonged siege, gradually wearing
them down, so that they will not be quickly res-
urrected following cathartic release.
Although he made it central, Reich never treated
emotion as the only valid expression of one's
humanity, and his theory emphasized understanding
as well as catharsis. It is unfortunate that Reich's
influence led to a reactive shift away from ration-
ality. It spawned the humanistic myth that the
mere surrender to feelings and passive acceptance
of impulses leads to fulfillment. In the 1960s a
variety of therapies with major emphasis on ca-
tharsis were popular, including psychodrama
(Moreno, 1958), encounter groups (Goldberg,
1970), re-grief therapy (Volkan, 1972), primal
therapy (Janov, 1970), bioenergetics (Lowen,
1967), Gestalt therapy (Perls, 1969), re-evaluation
counseling (Jackins, 1965), feeling therapy (Hart
et al., 1975), and new identity therapy (Casriel,
1972). Subsequently, some of these approaches
as well as some related offshoots [e.g., feeling-
expressive therapy (Pierce et al., 1983)] empha-
sized cognitive and behavioral strategies in addition
to their original cathartic focus. Just as Freud had
discovered that while symptom abatement could
be rapid and dramatic, it might also be temporary,
primal therapists discovered more and "deeper"
primals behind the original primal, and encounter
group workers were often disconcerted to discover
that they were producing emotional-high "junkies"
who sought one marathon weekend after another.
In other words, without being backed by more
integrated strategies for living, the "releases" of
the emotivists seemed transitory and palliative,
and had to be bolstered by increasingly striking
techniques and gimmicks. In this atmosphere, the
50
Michael P. Nichols & Jay S. Efran
enthusiasm for isolated cathartic practices was
bound to wear thin. Practitioners such as Harvey
Jackins (1965), who had originally emphasized
cathartic "discharge" almost exclusively, began
devoting more attention to the so-called "chronic
patterns" which seemed to require more than simple
release. His writings contain additional suggestions
for acting and living in ways which forcibly con-
tradict the neurotic patterning, and he established
co-counseling communities to provide a continuing
social network. Thus, catharsis or discharge
became a part of a larger, more complex feeling-
thinkingacting program.
In our view, the proper conclusion to be drawn
from all of this is that descriptions' of people in
terms of feelings, isolated from thoughts and action,
are incomplete, and no therapy can succeed without
addressing the whole human personality.
Further, it is epistemologically and
metaphysically unwise to grant special status to
one or another of these three descriptive
elements. A life pattern is not caused by a feeling,
a thought, or an action. Feelings, thoughts, and
actions are part-descriptions of life patterns.
Theoretical Analysis
The Nature of
Emotions
Most discussions of catharsis are muddled by
unclear thinking about the nature of emotions. In
what follows we will attempt to clarify some of
this confusion and offer some alternative descrip-
tions of emotion. Our goal will not be to offer a
comprehensive review of theories of emotion, but
merely to provide a stance from which to clarify
the role of catharsis in psychotherapy. Typically,
the language of emotion is the language of hy-
draulics. Sadness is said to "well up," anger
"boils," happiness "bubbles over," and grief
"comes in waves." All of these watery substances
flow on toward a gate (conscious expression) which
may be raised or lowered. When they are blocked,
emotions are said to build up pressure and seek
escape through other, substitute channels. Such
descriptions, while evocative, tend to concretize
and reify the concept of emotion and make of
it a quantity or thing. Some researchers have
set out to "find" emotions in the body and to
discover the chemical reactions that might
correspond to different emotional states
(Schacter & Singer, 1962), but we will confine
our analysis to the psychology of emotions. The
51
following vignette illustrates how this language
permeates our clinical thinking:
Three years after they married, Mrs. X's husband was killed
in an automobile accident. Her grief was so immense that the
poor woman could hardly bear it. In order to cope with her
loss, she repressed her grief and anger, burying these feelings
deep inside. For the following two years she was able to
function, but she was lonely, frightened, and anxious. Even-
tually, she became so unhappy that she sought
psychotherapy. In therapy, her grief, which had been kept
inside for so long, welled up to the surface until at last she was
able to discharge it. As her repression lifted she was able to
ventilate her grief and anger, crying and sobbing, until finally
she cried herself out.
In this description, grief is said to have been
repressed, stored, and finally discharged. But where
was it stored? Where did it go when it was dis-
charged? And what was left in its place? If these
questions seem absurd, it is because they reveal
the fallacious implications of our clumsy metaphors
of emotion. The problem is not the use of metaphor,
per se. In fact, all theories and conceptualizations
can be said to rely on metaphor (Overton, 1976).
The problem is that each metaphor chosen opens
one set of thought pathways, while closing others.
Metaphors that cast feelings as concrete entities
and as separate from thoughts and actions produce
colorful images, but at the cost of isolating emotions
from their full human context.
The irony is that while psychoanalysis was de-
veloped out of an appreciation of the neglected
role of emotions in human affairs, it perpetuated
ordinary language habits of personifying and rei-
fying emotion, cloaking existing confusion with
a veneer of scientific respectability. The underlying
premise remained: emotions were capable of being
stored or discharged; in storage, they required a
container (Ayer, 1946; Ryle, 1959; Schafer, 1976;
Bohart, 1980). By portraying people as passive
recipients or storehouses of their feelings, the
Freudian metaphors worked at cross-purposes with
the basic analytic goal of expanding the sphere
of self-knowledge and personal responsibility.
When people are said to "struggle with their feel-
ings," it seems that the feelings are somehow
outside them—or inside them—but not of them.
This notion runs counter to the psychotherapeutic
aim of helping people to realize the degree to
which they actively create their own lives, even
in those domains that they typically (and con-
veniently) construe as beyond their control. The
image of the person as a passive victim of bottled-
up affect simply cannot be reconciled with the
image of the person as an active, responsible agent.
Michael P. Nichols & Jay S. Efran
For purposes of conceptual analysis, it is possible
to subdivide experience into different categories,
such as thoughts, feelings, and actions. However,
the possibility of fractionating the phenomenology
of experience does not mean that any of these
components is an ontologically independent, au-
tonomously functioning entity, capable of sub-
mitting to or dominating the other two. It is as
though we took ourselves apart conceptually, forgot
that we did so, and then sat around puzzling over
how to reassemble the parts into a functioning
whole (Lazarus, 1982).
Because the structure of our language emphasizes
the distinction between nouns Rid verbs (Hineline,
1980; Shands, 1971), it is difficult to keep in mind
that our emotional concepts express relations—
they do not identify possessions. For example, to
be angry is not tcr have something; it is to be
related in a certain way. Although we say a "rock
is hard," as though the hardness was solely a
possession of the rock, the hardness actually refers
to its relationships with other things—that is,
when you kick a rock it is generally your foot
, experience fear or anxiety until productive action
that takes a beating (Bateson, 1979). Terms like
"anger" have dispositional implications (Rabkin,
1970). John's anger is not something inside
him; it describes his propensity to defend a certain
turf under certain conditions. Emotion words
primarily identify performances which are likely
to occur in a given context. In particular,
emotion words refer to a class of passive or
partially blocked actions (Peters, 1970).
Anger, for example, is a response to being
obstructed in the pursuit of a goal; without the
obstruction, the experience would not be considered
"emotional." Vigorous, complete, and effective
actions which surmount obstacles might be con-
sidered "aggressive," but "anger" only occurs to
the extent that such actions are ineffective or in-
complete. The "angry" person is the one who is
thwarted and left to protest, threaten, or fantasize
about retaliation.
In a similar way, other emotion terms (including
those which apply to the so-called "positive"
emotions) allude to goal-directed actions which
are unfinished, either because they are still antic-
ipated or have been temporarily or partially re-
strained. A familiar example is the "excitement"
attached to th6 prospect of opening Christmas
presents. Often the presents themselves are poor
substitutes for the experience—the heightened
arousal—the anticipation of discovering what they
are. Afterward, they are just things.
To take a different example, when you lose
your car keys, you engage in various "search and
retrieval" actions. The goal is clear, and the means
of restitution is usually obvious. However, when
someone you love dies, then you may search and
retrieve in the absence of any fully satisfactory,
logically appropriate means of obtaining restitution.
We call the fruitless protesting that takes place
"grieving." Grieving refers to efforts to "find"
the person, to restore a sense of him or her, or
to recreate the relationship elsewhere or find a
substitute. The bereaved person repetitively reviews
the circumstances under which the loved one was
lost, in an attempt to renew some form of action.
Notice that this is not unlike what one does in
the case of missing keys, although the emotion
may be far more intense because the loss is more
profound and because the avenues open for res-
titution are more limited.
Avoidance or escape behavior only becomes
"fear" when the exit route is blocked. In automobile
accidents people often report that they did not
was no longer possible. Even though the objective
danger may have been high, there is little fear
during full engagement. As long as some form
of relevant action is possible there will be little
or no experience of fear. Actors and other stage
performers attest to the same phenomenon when
they report that they felt anxious in the wings,
while waiting to "go on," but not during the per-
formance itself. Thus, stage fright might be more
accurately called "waiting-in-the-wings-fright."
Further, it is not usually the players on the
athletic field who jump up and down with ex-
citement—it is the fans. The fans, who are re-
strained from playing, are the ones who are apt
to become "emotional" about the game. Players
may do the same, but only when they are on the
sidelines, or after the game, when pouring cham-
pagne over each other seems the only way to keep
the game alive.
Sex researchers have emphasized that sexual
arousal also depends upon blockage, and that each
culture has, therefore, contrived ways to locate
barriers in the sex act itself or in courtship rituals
(Tripp, 1975). Sexual attraction might be said to
be anticipated or partially obstructed union or
merger. Since you cannot fully incorporate, pos-
sess, or join the loved object, you do the next
best thing—you hold the person close, emulate
aspects of the person, chew or nibble away at him
or her, attempt to contractually bind him or her
Michael P. Nichols & Jay S. Efran

51
Michael P. Nichols & Jay S. Efran
to you. Presumably, if one could fully "have"
the other, desire would diminish or ultimately
vanish. As it is, the sex researchers have docu-
mented that attraction for the attainable diminishes,
and the same is evidently true for animals as well
(the so-called Coolidge effect; Wilson et al., 1963).
Thus far we have argued that emotion words
refer to blocked actions, but that people tend to
concretize feelings, making them into things.
Feel is a verb, and not a noun, and to say that
what is felt is a "a feeling" is to assume that
giving something a name makes it real. To feel is
to do something, not to have something. It is
situated action—action in social context. Anger
does not reside somewhere (either inside or
outside the body). It is a partially arrested goal-
directed program. Emotion terms are always
associated with a sense of restraint,"even though
this is not always explicit in common usage. We
tend especially to use emotion words when the
obstructed action is in an important domain—
when our well-being is threatened. However, it
should be noted that at least some hindrance is
necessary to produce any awareness of self (self-
consciousness). This is why Chein (1972) considers
an awareness the smallest unit of feeling. From
this point of view, an obstruction is both
something in your way, and something
necessary to recognize or "realize" yourself in
relation to some goal. In other words, if there
were no opposing team there would be no
game. And, if there were no game, there would be
no players. So, on the one hand, emotions
point to obstacles, but, on the other hand, they
are the cutting edge of self-definition.
The Two-Stage Process
To further our understanding of the events which
are labeled emotional, it is important to note that
obstacles engage a two-stage rather than a one-
stage adaptive process (Efran & Spangler, 1979).
First there is activation, when a goal is blocked,
and then recovery, when the obstacle is overcome
or the goal becomes less relevant and can be given
up. Each state has different physiological and psy-
chological markers, and we have gotten ourselves
into considerable trouble by confusing these two
related but different processes. The activation stage
tends to be associated with sympathetic nervous
system response, and the recovery stage represents
a shift to parasympathetic activity (Kahn, 1966).
It has often gone unnoticed that certain of the
manifestations most closely associated with con-
cepts of emotion, such as tears and laughter, occur
in the second stage and not the first. People do
52
not cry or laugh during the arousal process. They
cry or laugh after having been aroused, during
recovery from that arousal.
In the first stage, one's resources are applied
to working on the problem. The lost child is
searching for Mommy, the driver of the skidding
car is trying to steer away from trouble: as long
as they are working on the problem, they are too
busy to "be emotional." They are in stage one.
Only when the goal has been accomplished, or
given up, does the system shift into recovery.
With recovery the system experiences a "release."
It is not "feelings" that are released—the active,
problem-solving engagement or stance of the sys-
tem is released.
No wonder people are confused about whether
tears are good for you or whether they indicate
trouble. Crying signals resolution; it is "good"
in the sense that it indicates that the system has
been able to shift into recovery, and that the prob-
lem has therefore either been surmounted or tem-
porarily given up. Crying is also an index of dis-
tress; it indicates that the equilibrium of the system
has just been frustrated and threatened. Moreover,
crying itself is not "bad" or "good." Loss is
painful and recovery is welcome— tears are a
sign of release and tension-reduction. Crying does
not feel good; recovery feels good. Freud was
correct when he said that "emotional discharge"
signifies that relevant and important issues are
being dealt with. To use Piaget's terms, stage one
is a problem of assimilation, and stage two reflects
accommodation (Flavell, 1963).
Our language habits tend to obscure the simi-
larities among various manifestations of release—
including tears, laughter, and angry shouting. Most
of us have had the experience of being uncertain
whether someone in the next room is laughing or
crying, and of course we all know that giggles
can dissolve into tears and vice versa. All forms
of "emotional discharge" have in common that
they are preceded by an activating event (stage
one) and are then part of a recovery process (stage
two).
Because the first and second stages have usually
been treated as a single, undifferentiated process,
it is not surprising that we also have trouble un-
derstanding why people sometimes cry in "happy"
circumstances. The truth is that the process which
ends in tears is always the same, regardless of
the circumstances that precede it. The point is
this: Crying represents recovery from stressful

arousal or system blockage; it does not much matter
what activated the system. If the activating events
are labeled positively, the tears will be considered
"tears of joy," while tears in the face of unhappy
events will be considered "tears of grief."
A thorough analysis would, of course, include
a careful examination of the exact source of the
activation as well as the nature/of events which
allowed the system to shift into recovery. Simply
noting that it was a wedding or a funeral implies
an explanation, but does not in fact reveal the
specific nature of the obstacles that led to activation,
nor how they were overcome to achieve
resolution. It might be, for example, that the
mother of the bride was terribly worried about the
practical arrangements for the wedding, or that
she was anticipating the moment that marks the
successful completion of her job as. a parent, or
both. When the vows are exchanged, the episode
is complete, and the mother "goes off duty,"
into recovery. Now the tears flow.
Interfering with Recovery
Most cultures place substantial prohibitions on
emotional (recovery phase) displays. In recovery
the organism is "going off duty" with regard to
the goal at hand. With small children, this is
permissible. The child is overwhelmed (unable
to assimilate), gives up, and easily shifts into
recovery, with tears being an outward manifestation
of the shift. This alerts parents to come to the
rescue: they embrace and comfort the child, re-
storing a patterned, assimilable environment and
removing any obvious source of distress. They
may also provide new and additional resources—
they put a piece of the puzzle in for the child, or
demonstrate a different problem-solving strategy.
Children may even learn to give up more quickly
when they know that a rescuer is at hand.
Thus, a child who is lost and alone may continue
working at the problem, and remain dry-eyed, until
a sympathetic adult appears, at which point the
child quickly "gives up" and begins to cry. Note
that the crying starts only when problem-solving
efforts are abandoned; they also occur when the
mother shows up, and the problem is thereby
handled— the child is no longer lost. Due to our
misunderstanding of this process (and to the
embarassment of mothers in such situations)
one is apt to hear the child scolded for "crying
now that the problem is solved." Obviously, that
is exactly when the child should be crying
(Jackins 1965).
Catharsis in Psychotherapy
What is permitted in children is forbidden to
adults. We do not want parents to "go off duty"
too easily, and negative sanctions are levied against
older children and adults who are "crybabies."
Males, who are, after all, traditionally supposed
to be the "hunters" and "protectors," are partic-
ularly enjoined against "letting go" in the face
of obstacles. So boys learn the value of inhibiting
signs of weakness and fear, and develop techniques
for holding themselves together or withdrawing
before losing face. Girls, on the other hand, who
are often expected to play more subsidiary and
supportive roles, are chastened for displays of
protest and anger, and may learn early on to refrain
not only from fighting but also from verbal
expressions of aggression as well. When national
political leaders "break down" and cry it is news-
worthy, and the •omen's movement has found
it necessary to endorse formal and informal "as-
sertiveness training" for women have had too little
encouragement to protest or define themselves.
It is unfortunate that people in general, as well
as many mental health professionals, have been
confused about the relationship between mani-
festations of recovery (tears and angry displays),
and the first-stage activating events or blockages.
Some professionals interfere with the manifes-
tations of recovery as though the manifestations
were the problem itself. They want the person to
stop giggling, or stop crying, or stop screaming—
as though that would end the distress. In fact,
these displays do make most of us uncomfortable,
as they probably did Breuer and Freud. Again,
part of this may be due to the fact that these stage-
two manifestations indicate that the person is
"going off duty," and that we may be called upon
to take the helm and solve the problem ourselves.
While recovery-phase activity need not be in-
terrupted and may in fact help in pinpointing the
nature of the blockage and how it should be man-
aged, it is equally unwise to worship these man-
ifestations, as some of the emotivists appear to
have done. Eliciting tears, laughter, or screams
should not become an end in itself. There is no
need to regard the quantity of tears or the loudness
of screams as a measure of the success of treatment.
As we already noted, it is not the tears per se that
are valuable, but the event which allowed the
organism to shift into recovery.
The two-stage process which has been described
is a natural process, and while it can be interfered
with, it does not have to be tutored. That is,
people do not need to be taught how or when to
53
Michael P. Nichols & Jay S. Efran
laugh, cry, or shout for joy. They may need to
be encouraged or given permission to allow these
recovery processes to proceed, rather than holding
themselves tight and tense, or leaving the field
(physically or psychologically) to avoid the pos-
sibility of "breaking down."
There is one point on which it is necessary to
be crystal clear, since much of the remaining dis-
cussion hinges on it: what is "blocked" when we
speak of emotions is not "feelings" but directed
actions (Chin, 1972). A person "asserts" himself
or herself through action propositions which are
verbalized and then realized. Thus, it is one's
career as a self that needs to be furthered and
validated in the "emotionally inhibited," and not
simply the expression of some presumed internally
stored quantity of ,affect. Also, since what you
propose to be and do in life (as a self) cannot be
merely hypothetical, we are talking about authentic
actions in the real world, and not detached ver-
balizations or even rehearsed performances in
therapy. To put it another way, if you discover
that a bear is chasing you, it would be a real bear
that threatens your "self," and you had better
develop a real plan to avoid it. The problem is
not your "fear"; the problem is the bear, and even
more precisely your relationship with it. If you
can handle the bear, your fear will take care of
itself. If you cannot, the bear will take care of
you and your fear. A rapid course in "bear man-
agement" would thus be a lot more helpful than
a biofeedback course in relaxation techniques or
a cathartic ventilation of your fear.
There are times, particularly in contrived en-
vironments, when it seems as though an isolated
cathartic ventilation handles a problem. From our
viewpoint catharsis never handles a problem. In-
stead, catharsis promotes one or two useful actions.
In some cases, catharsis both signals and is part
of the completion of a previously interrupted se-
quence of actions. Crying over an old loss signals
the resolution of grief and is part of the process
of "letting go." In other cases, catharsis is a form
of self-assertion (self-action). Aggressive shouting
at a therapist who is role-playing one's spouse is
an example of this limited form of self-expression.
There is nothing wrong with this, as long as it is
viewed as a beginning attempt to complete an
aspect of one's self in relation to others, rather
than as the end of the matter. Therapy is a suitable
laboratory in which to rehearse aspects of the self,
because, as in all laboratories, safety factors have
been introduced to reduce risk and permit exper
54
imentation. However, it would be a mistake to
think that people can have different and fuller
relationships with their spouses just by role-playing
with therapeutic stand-ins—even if they do yell
a lot.
There has been an unfortunate confusion about
the differences between "real" circumstances and
"artificial" ones, as well as between taking action
and expressing oneself. Expressing is acting, al-
though it may be limited or preliminary action,
and it may be done in contexts ("artificial") where
the payoff—and the risk—is less than it would
be in other ("real") contexts. While we are what
we say we are—how we define ourselves—our
definition must be consistent with real, conse-
quential, socially-situated actions. You cannot
sustain the claim that you are a punctual person
unless you get to places on time. Thus, the linguistic
self and the physical self must be consistent.
Some early behavior therapists treated the person
as simply a physical entity, without adequate at-
tention to meanings and labels. They employed
a limited conception of action, thinking of it as
something separated from emotion and cognition.
Cognitive therapists, on the other hand, tended
to overlook the fact that language encodings —
beliefs or cognitions —become empty verbalisms
when separated from the relevant social, action
contexts. For their part, emotivists have tended
to separate out the class of actions we have iden-
tified as "blocked," and made of these some special
"stuff," presumably stored in the "gut" of the
body, and seen as being at war with rationality,
located in the head. It should not be clear that
these separations are false, and that they limit
rather than enhance understanding.
Catharsis: A Definition
We have progressed thus far without a formal
definition of catharsis. It would be inadvisable to
continue that way, since some of the apparently
discrepant viewpoints about catharsis result from
differing definitions. For example, when catharsis
is defined as acting on aggressive impulses by
administering electric shock (as in research on the
social psychology of aggression, e.g., Berkowitz,
1962), then it is likely to precipitate increased
hostility and aggressive behavior. These findings
are significant, but of questionable relevance to
psychotherapy, because the aggressive behavior
in these studies might better be called retaliation
than catharsis.
 A second common usage of the term catharsis
refers to patients speaking freely and with some
feeling. This is often little more than aimless ram-
bling, neither cathartic nor cognitively focused.
The following two quotations from textbooks on
psychotherapy demonstrate this usage.
In catharsis, the counselor actively stimulates the client to
talk himself out. It is effective only in relatively superficial
problems and in the case of more serious disturbances it may
not even give symptomatic relief, but may reinforce the tension
(Patterson 1966, p. 86).
And Wohlberg (1977), writing about what he calls
catharsis, says,
The sheer act of talking can provide an individual with con-
siderable emotional palliation. It furnishes a motor outlet for
the release of tension (p. 28).
These definitions lack several essential elements
that we want to bring into play in our discussion
of catharsis and related therapeutic operations.
First, there must be the implication of restraint.
In our view, this is always involved in "emotion,"
but here there is the additional implication of a
relatively long-term postponement of an appropriate
definitional enactment. Johnny is spanked, but he
neither cries nor expresses anger. He is too proud
to show hurt and too intimidated to retaliate or
protest. This restraint sets the stage for later ca-
thartic expression. Also, the term "catharsis" seems
to us only appropriate when the later expression
occurs (at least initially) in a substitute setting or
context. Johnny expresses his hurt and chagrin,
not to his father, but to a therapist in the context
of a therapy hour. The cathartic enactment is
therefore a substitute or preliminary enactment
in a different ("artificial") setting.
Thus, catharsis is to be understood as a label
for completing (some or all of) a previously re-
strained or interrupted sequence of self-expression.
The expression is that which would have occurred
as a natural reaction to some experience had that
expression not been thwarted. It is accompanied
by stage-two recovery manifestations of some sort;
for example, tears or angry shouting.
Describing catharsis as the completion of an
emotional action sequence has practical conse-
quences which bear on therapeutic technique. To
say that feelings are actions rather than things
avoids divorcing patients from aspects of them-
selves, and reduces their tendency to disclaim
action (Schafer, 1976). Since psychotherapy is a
process in which patients can claim greater re-
sponsibility for their actions, this point of view
becomes a distinct asset.
In the following section we describe goals of
therapy that are consistent with the view that has
been described and give relevant examples. Our
aim is not to create a new form of therapy but to
illustrate some techniques and strategies to be
used by therapists of various persuasions to whom
our argument thus far has made some sense.
Therapeutic Goals
1. Do nothing to inhibit, block, or short-circuit
the recovery phase (stage two) and its manifes-
tation, Many clinicians are unsure of the value
of catharsis, and many more are uncomfortable
in the face of strong emotional display. Both groups
may act to impede recovery-phase manifestations,
either directly or indirectly. Once feeling-expression
is understood to be a normal part of the adaptive
process, therapists can adopt a permissive, ac-
cepting set and avoid any direct interference with
the emotional manifestations of recovery. Fur-
thermore, therapists can learn to tolerate a wide
range of feelings of varying intensities.
Because intense emotional expression can appear
unique and dramatic, some therapists infer that
special conditions are necessary to produce it. In
fact, some people do use a variety of special pro-
cedures, including hypnotism, sodium pentothal,
and role-playing. These seem necessary only if
one views catharsis as purging feelings that are
locked "inside." However, when it is understood
that catharsis is feeling expression, not expulsion,
it can be regarded as a thoroughly natural aspect
of experiencing. Once this is done, the emphasis
shifts to guarding against a number of common
ways of inhibiting the recovery phase and its man-
ifestations. The following are a few examples of
this.
Asking analytic questions while a patient is in the
throes of a strong affective experience only diverts
the person from finishing the experience:
"I think my wife is going to leave me (beginning
to cry). God, I'll miss her!" (Crying hard).
"What makes you think she's going to leave?"
Reassurance is easy and tempting to give.
nevertheless, it often blocks emotional experiencing
and, moreover, it may be false:
"He was such a wonderful man (sobbing)—and
I loved him so! Now he's gone and I'll never find
another like him."
Michael P. Nichols & Jay S. Efran
"I know you feel bad now, but you're an attractive
person. I'm sure you'll find someone else."
Most of us accept the idea that catharsis is
good, but we often find it difficult to accept intense
and dramatic expressions of feeling. After weeks
of encouraging a widower to get in touch with
his grief, a therapist was stunned when he finally
did express his feelings —they were not what she
had expected!
"Goddamn you, shut up! You're always pushing
me to feel sad. You and everyone else! My sister,
Reverend Grosch, everybo4y! I don't know what
the hell I feel, I just wish people would leave me
alone!"
"Now just a minute, [only want what's best for
you. You needn't get so angry about it."
"I'm sorry."
Figures from the past aren't the only ones who
can oppose the expression of strong sentiments!
2. Help patients overcome tendencies to short-
circuit their own experience. Just as recovery can
be impeded by therapists, it can also be resisted
by patients. Most people have learned so well to
inhibit their self-expression that they do so au-
tomatically; these people need reminders to help
them overcome avoidance, denial, and restraint.
(In psychotherapy, such countering of defenses
is sometimes called dealing with resistance.) The
therapist's task is paradoxical: first, to not inter-
fere—to accept spontaneous emotional expression;
second, to interfere—to counter the patient's au-
tomatic or nearly automatic censor. The goal is
to help patients shift into recovery and to complete
their experience. This can often be done by simple
encouragement and reflection of feelings.
"I was sort of annoyed by what my father said,
but I shouldn't feel that way; I know he's doing
the best he can."
"But you were annoyed; go ahead and say it."
"You must think I'm silly, crying this way
over a lost cat."
"No, I don't. Stay with it."
"Sure I may have been a little lonely, but I
think I can understand why."
"It sounds like you were more than a little lonely."
In general, analyzing a patient's resistance can
lead to more cognitive wheel-spinning than emo
bona! expression. Frequently, more direct measures
are more productive. These include simply en-
56
couraging patients to "let go." A verbose intel-
lectualizer might be asked to stop talking, close
his or her eyes, and visualize the scene being
talked about. A quiet, soft-spoken woman might
be directed to raise her voice and repeat the angry
statement that she just mumbled. A hunched-over
person might be invited to experiment with sitting
straight, or a nervous and fidgety person might
be asked just to sit still. All of these techniques
are directive, but not selective. By using them
the therapist is not telling the patients what to
experience, but to reduce active attempts to block
or modulate experience. Blocking resistance is
helpful, pushing patients to experience something
particular is not. The goal is to interrupt the usual
excessively restrained presentation and turn the
patient's attention to whatever emerges. Neither
party to the treatment should look for "important"
feelings; they should take whatever comes. This
can be done in such a way as to help patients take
more responsibility for their actions, as well as
helping them finish the business at hand. Pointing
out the activity ("avoiding feeling") that lies behind
apparent passivity ("not feeling") draws the pa-
tient's attention to his or her own actions and
helps the person take responsibility for them.
3. Use catharsis as a clue to blocked action,
and provide assistance with experimentation and
rehearsal, first "in therapy" and then "in life".
Catharsis points to incomplete life sequences. The
angry things that are first said in the safety of
therapy may later need to be shared outside the
therapy room.
"You know, you come in here every week and
yell at your husband; I wonder if it's time you
started planning how you want to share these as-
pects of your self with him. There's a lot about
you he may not yet have had the chance to get
to know."
Obviously, it is unwise to encourage direct
translation of all impulses into action. Impulses
were restrained in the first place because they
involved conflict and perceived danger. Since
current reality probably had little to do with the
initial restraint, it may not be taken into account
when patients contemplate expression of these
blocked feelings and impulses. The therapist can,
and should, help in the evaluation of how long-
restrained expressions can be given suitable
expression in relevant social contexts. Initially,
Catharsis in Psychotherapy

57
some clients will want to go from total nonexpres-
sion to unmitigated expression, with insufficient
consideration of the web of social expectations
they have created in the interim. Some tempering
may prevent unnecessary crises from developing.
"I never realized how furious I am at my boss.
I'm going to give that bitch a piece of my mind!"
"I wonder why you didn't do that in the first
place. And I wonder what consequences should
be considered in figuring out how to do it now?"
4. Use catharsis to help patients discover, define,
and enact their selves in relation to others. Emo-
tionally inhibited individuals need to further their
career as selves, not discharge "repressed affects."
Repressed affects (blocked actions) reveal rela-
tionship dispositions (the actions) and hindrances
(the blockages). Inhibited people seem to have
trouble "feeling," and therefore emotive therapists
may be encouraged to help these individuals express
their feelings in treatment sessions. Unfortunately,
these socially fearful clients may readily accept
a therapy that stops with "emotional discharge."
In our opinion, therapists should allow catharsis
as a means of helping patients discover their pre-
dilections, but should recognize this as a prelim-
inary step. After blocked aspects of self have been
discovered, then the patient must begin to claim
responsibility for choosing more congruent actions
and appropriate social expressions, thereby
defining a richer, more satisfying existence.
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