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, catharsis is called an act of liberation, purification or cleansing, whether of the body, mind or 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 ancient Greek times (katharsis), and used with different meanings: the doctor Hippocrates (c. 460-c. 370 BC) used it to call the menstrual flow, which meant 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 trees.
However, the best-known use of the term comes from the Poetics by Aristotle (384-322 BC), a work that founded Western literary criticism, and in which the term catharsis appears associated with the positive effects that tragedy has on Greek citizens, by allowing them a space for the purge of the lower passions, which would have a direct positive impact on the quality of their souls.
This last sense of the word catharsis endured in Western tradition and reappeared in the Middle Ages to give its name to the Cathars or Albigensians, 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.
Labeled heretical by the Catholic Church, the doctrine of the Cathars proposed that the world was a terrain of conflict between the material and base forces of Satan and the spiritual and pure forces of God.
According to this view, in the middle of both forces were human souls forced to reincarnate, unless they managed to purify themselves sufficiently through extreme asceticism, obligatory chastity, and vegetarianism. For them, Jesus had never been incarnated, but rather had been an appearance of God to guide his faithful along the right path.
Catharsis in Greek tragedy
According to what was formulated by Aristotle in his Poeticscatharsis is a procedure of emotional, spiritual and moral purification or purging, which takes place when the spectators of the work become involved in the destiny of the characters, and contemplate their own base passions being punished in them.
That is to say, By suffering while witnessing the fate of the characters, the spectators were freed from their passions for fear of suffering the consequences themselves.
In this way, Greek theater fulfilled an important civic and educational role, as it promoted the values of Greek tradition, among which were hubris (something like pride) as the most serious of human defects, and the reason why the great Greek heroes fell from grace.
Catharsis in psychoanalysis
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 psychological discomforts in humans came from repressed childhood traumas, most of which had a sexual nature. To heal them, the trauma had to be relived, either through hypnosis or through conversation with the psychotherapist (that is, through psychotherapy), to allow an outlet for those “blocked” contents.
This process was known as the “cathartic method.” and it was often used to combat the so-called “hysterical affections” of the time. Thus, from 1909 onwards the term “catharsis” was used to replace the Germanic openoriginally 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, in this case, refers to the spontaneous expulsion of harmful substances from the body that is, to the purge. Thus, certain substances can have a cathartic effect on the body, to the extent that they expel toxins or potentially harmful waste.
References
- “Catharsis” on Wikipedia.
- “Catharsis” in the Language Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy.
- “Catharsis” in Dictionary of scientific and philosophical psychology.
- “Etymology of Catharsis” in Online Spanish Etymological Dictionary (Chile).
- “Catharsis” in Filosofia.org.
- “Catharsis” in Medical-biological, historical and etymological dictionary.
