We explain what catharsis is and the origin of the term. Also, what is catharsis in Greek tragedy, in psychoanalysis and in medicine.
What is catharsis?
In general, an act of liberation, purification or cleansing is called catharsis, either from the Body, of the mind or of the emotions. It can occur spontaneously or thanks to the action of external forces, depending on the specific meaning given to it.
The term was coined in the greek antiquity (kátharsis), and used with different senses: the physician Hippocrates (c. 460-c. 370 BC) used it to call the menstrual flow, which involved the expulsion of malignant humors that the body needed to discard; while the botanist Theophrastus (c. 371-c. 287 BC) used it as a synonym for “pruning”, since inconvenient branches are removed from the trees.
However, the best known use of the term comes from the Poetics of Aristotle (384-322 BC), a work that founds western literary criticism, and in which the term catharsis appears associated with the positive effects of tragedy on the Greek citizenship, by allowing them a space to purge their lower passions, which would have a direct positive impact on the quality of their souls.
This last sense of the word catharsis endured in the Western tradition and reappeared in the medieval to give name to the Cathars or Albigenses, a fanatical Christian sect that proliferated in Europe between the 11th and 13th centuries, especially among the inhabitants of the French South (southern France) and the ancient Crown of Aragon.
Cataloged from heretical By the Catholic Church, the doctrine of the Cathars proposed that the world was a terrain of conflict between the material and lower forces of Satan and the spiritual and pure forces of God.
According to this vision, in the middle of both forces were human souls forced to reincarnate, unless they managed to purify themselves sufficiently through a asceticism extreme, compulsory chastity and vegetarianism. For them, Jesus had never been incarnate, but rather had been an apparition of God to guide his faithful on the right path.
Catharsis in Greek tragedy
According to what was formulated by Aristotle in his Poetics, catharsis is a process of purification or emotional, spiritual and moral purge, which takes place when the spectators of the work are involved in the destiny of the characters, and they see their own low passions being punished in them.
That is to say, by suffering witnessing the fate of the characters, the audience freed themselves from their passions, for fear of suffering their consequences as well.
In this way, the Greek theater fulfilled an important civic and educational role, since it promoted the values Greek tradition, among which was the hybris (something like pride) as the most serious of the defects of the human being, and the reason why the great Greek heroes fell from grace.
Catharsis in psychoanalysis
For Breuer and Freud, psychic ailments stemmed from repressed trauma.
The term catharsis was not adopted in the world of the study of the mind until the 19th century, thanks to the psychologist Josef Breuer (1842-1925) and especially the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939).
The latter proposed that the source of many emotional and psychic ailments in the human being they stemmed from repressed childhood traumas, most of which were sexual in nature. To heal them, it was necessary to relive the trauma, either through hypnosis or through conversation with the psychotherapist (that is, through psychotherapy), to allow a way out of these “blocked” contents.
This process was known as the "cathartic method" and was often used to combat the so-called "hysterical conditions" of the time. Thus, from 1909 the term "catharsis" was used to replace the Germanic open, originally used by Freud and translatable as "vent."
Catharsis in medicine
In the field of medicine, the term catharsis also appears, with its sense of purification or relief. Except that, in this case, it refers to the spontaneous expulsion of the organism of substances harmful, that is, to the purge. Thus, certain substances can have a cathartic effect on the organism, to the extent that they expel potentially harmful toxins or wastes.