Catharsis For other uses, see Catharsis (disambiguation). Not to be confused with Cathexis.

Catharsis or katharsis (Ancient Greek: ) is a Greek word meaning "cleansing" or "purging". It is derived from the verb , kathairein, "to purify, purge," and it is related to the adjective , katharos, "pure or clean." Dramaturgical uses Catharsis is the emotional cleansing of the audience and/or characters in a play. In relation to drama it is an extreme change in emotion resulting from strong feelings of sorrow, fear, pity, or laughter; this result has been described as a purification or a purging of such emotions (whether those of the characters in the play or of the audience).[1] More recently such terms as restoration, renewal, and revitalization have been used in relation to the effect on members of the audience.[citation needed] Using the term "catharsis" to refer to the emotions was first done by the Greek philosopher Aristotle in his work Poetics. It refers to the sensation, or literary effect, that would ideally overcome either the characters in a play, or an audience upon finishing watching a tragedy (a release of pent-up emotion or energy). In his previous works, he used the term in its medical sense (usually referring to the evacuation of the "katamenia", the menstrual fluid or other reproductive material).[2] Because of this, F. L. Lucas maintains that catharsis cannot be properly translated as purification or cleansing, but only as purgation. Since before Poetics catharsis was purely a medical term, Aristotle is employing it as a medical metaphor. "It is the human soul that is purged of its excessive passions."[3] Lessing sidesteps the medical aspect of the issue and translates catharsis as a purification, an experience that brings pity and fear into their proper balance: "In real life," he explained, "men are sometimes too much addicted to pity or fear, sometimes too little; tragedy brings them back to a virtuous and happy mean."[4] Tragedy is then a corrective; through watching tragedy the audience learns how to feel these emotions at the proper levels. Some modern interpreters of the work infer that catharsis is pleasurable because audience members felt ekstasis (Greek: ) (ecstasy) (literally: astonishment, meaning: trance) from the fact that there existed those who could suffer a worse fate than them was to them a relief.[citation needed] Any translator attempting to interpret Aristotle's meaning of the term should take into account that Poetics is largely a response to Plato's claim that poetry encourages men to be hysterical and uncontrolled. In response to Plato, Aristotle maintains that poetry makes them less, not more, emotional, by giving a periodic and healthy outlet to their feelings. In literary aesthetics, catharsis is developed by the conjunction of stereotyped characters and unique or surprising actions. Throughout a play we do not expect the nature of a character to change significantly, rather pre-existing elements are revealed in a relatively straight-forward way as the character is confronted with unique actions in time. This can be clearly seen in Oedipus Rex where King Oedipus is confronted with ever more outrageous actions until emptying generated by the death of his mother-wife and his act of self-blinding.[citation needed]

In contemporary aesthetics catharsis may also refer to any emptying of emotion experienced by an audience in relation to drama. This exstasis can be perceived in comedy, melodrama and most other dramatic forms. Deliberate attempts, on political or aesthetic bases, to subvert the structure of catharsis in theatre have occurred. For example, Bertolt Brecht viewed catharsis as a pap for the bourgeois theatre audience, and designed dramas which left significant emotions unresolved, as a way to force social action upon the audience. In Brecht's theory, the absence of a cathartic resolving action would require the audience to take political action in the real world in order to fill the emotional gap they experience. This technique can be seen as early as his agit-prop play The Measures Taken.[citation needed] [edit] "Natya Shastra" by Bharat Muni, an ancient Indian Sage Bharat Muni, in his treatise "Natya Shastra" written almost 4000 years ago also acknowledged benefits of the cathartic process. He strongly recommends kings to get out of their 'sanitized world' for some time and participate in drama and theater activities. This would allow them to experience emotions which are normally outside their daily routine. The Natya (Drama) was important for both, the actors as well as the audience for a healthy balance in their emotional world, and Natya Shastra was looked upon as a spiritual pursuit at a much more elevated plane than mere entertainment. [edit] "Catharsis" before tragedy Catharsis before the sixth-century rise of tragedy is, for the Western World, essentially a historical footnote to the Aristotelian conception. The practice of purification did not yet appear in Homer, as later Greek commentators noted:[5] the Aithiopis, an epic in the Trojan War cycle, narrates the purification of Achilles after his murder of Thersites. Catharsis describes the result of means taken to cleanse away blood-guilt"blood is purified through blood" (Burkert 1992:56) a process in the development of Hellenic culture in which the oracle of Delphi took a prominent role. The classic example, of 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.[6] The identical ritual is represented, Burkert informs us (1992:57) on a krater found at Canicattini, to cure the daughters of Proetus of their madness, caused by some ritual transgression. To the question of whether the ritual procures atonement or just healing, Burkert answers: "To raise the question is to see the irrelevance of this distinction" (1992:57). [edit] Therapeutic uses The term catharsis has been used for centuries as a medical term meaning a "purging." Most commonly in a medical context, it euphemistically refers to a purging of the bowels. A drug, herb, or other agent administered as a strong laxative is termed a cathartic.

The term catharsis has also been adopted by modern psychotherapy, particularly Freudian psychoanalysis, to describe the act of expressing, or more accurately, experiencing the deep emotions often associated with events in the individual's past which had originally been repressed or ignored, and had never been adequately addressed or experienced. Modern psychological opinion is divided on the usefulness of catharsis aggression in anger management. "Blowing off steam" may reduce physiological stress in the short term, but this reduction may act as a reward mechanism, reinforcing the behavior and promoting future outbursts.[7][8][9][10] Catharsis is also an emotional release associated with talking about the underlying causes of a problem or seeing a dream.[citation needed] [edit] See also Closure (psychology) [edit] Notes ^ Aristotle, Poetics, 1449b25f. ^ Belifiore, Elizabeth S. Tragic Pleasures: Aristotle on Plot and Emotion, page 300. Princeton UP, 1992 ^ Lucas, F.L. Tragedy in Relation to Aristotle's Poetics, page 24 ^ ibid., page 23. Hogarth, 1928 ^ Walter Burkert, 1992. The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age, p.56. (Harvard University Press). This sub-section depends largely on Burkert. ^ Burkert notes parallels with a bilingual Akkadian-Sumerian ritual text: "the knowledgeable specialist, the sacrificial piglet, slaughter, contact with blood, and the subsequent cleansing with water" (1992:58). ^ Bushman, BJ; RF Baumeister, and AD Stack (1999-03). "Catharsis, aggression, and persuasive influence: self-fulfilling or self-defeating prophecies?". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76 (3): 367376. PMID 10101875. ^ Gannon, Theresa A. (2007). Theresa A. Gannon, Tony Ward, Anthony R. Beech, and Dawn Fisher. ed. Aggressive offenders' cognition: theory, research, and practice. 35. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9780470034019. ^ Baron, Robert A.; Deborah R. Richardson (2004). "Catharsis: does "getting it out of one's system" really help?". Human Aggression. Springer. ISBN 9780306484346. ^ Denzler, Markus; Jens Frster and Nira Liberman (2009-01). "How goal-fulfillment decreases aggression". Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45 (1): 90100. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2008.08.021.