To decide when to apply the one or the other method rests with the analyst's skill and experience. Practical medicine is, and has always been an art, and the same is true of practical analysis. True art is creation, and creation is beyond all theories. That is why I say to any beginner: Learn your theories as well as you can, but put them aside when you touch the miracle of the living soul. Not theories, but your own creative individuality alone must decide. ~Carl Jung, Contributions to Analytical Psychology, Page 361

Monday, August 8, 2016

My working towards a Definition of Catharsis

Catharsis
Katharsis – from the Greeks, “ a cleansing from guilt or defilement, purification, purgation, to purge, cleanse.
An emotional release: an experience or feeling of spiritual release brought about by an intense emotional experience.
By means of the aesthetic experience, the elimination, sublimation or transformation of one’s emotions, especially the destructive emotions.
He called this relaxation of the soul or person, catharsis, a purification of the soul by relieving or healing of its intense passions.
According to Aristotle in the theater through Greek tragedy, emotional purging is brought about in the audience through the evocation of intense fear and pity. Through sympathy with the characters, the audience obtains relief from fear and grief and the playgoer’s soul is liberated from its tumultuous emotions and regains its tranquility.

In Psychiatry: the purging of complexes; the process of bringing to the surface repressed emotions, complexes and feelings in an effort to identify and relieve them, or the result of this process.


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