It is used in the sense of catharsis, purification, facilitation and dissolution through anger removal. The concept first finds its meaning in Aristotle's Poetics and Politics, and Aristotle claims that the emotions expressed in a theater presentation will lead the audience to 'purification of the soul'. This concept was revisited by some psychotherapy schools 2000 years after Aristotle. In the words of James Braid (1795-1860), the Age of Hypnosis began with the concept of 'Hypnotism', which Mesmer named 'Magnetism' and developed based on magnetism. Daily life and people's naive/subjective psychological theories play an important role in the design of catharsis, such as "repressed and divided experiences harm people", "the more you repress, the more it happens to you". Many people know these types of experienced formulations from their own experiences, and they get angry, angry, swallow, hold on, overcome or suppress their negative emotions. And one day, something small happens and the limit is crossed and everything that was repressed from that small experience comes out on its own. There are various and many sources of evidence for this model - as well as counter-evidence sources (Dann, 1971 and Nolting, 2012). Most of these sources are about confronting (people) with their biographies, identifying or empathizing. What is implied here by catharsis is the cultural background and therapeutic space that has many meanings and touches various aspects of daily life. Although almost every person knows the concept of catharsis - reducing stimulation and tension through emotional expression - from their own experiences, the catharsis hypothesis is not an agreed-upon concept from a scientific perspective, and counter-evidence to be refuted is regularly produced (e.g. Nolting, 2012). The important thing here is to question what is researched and observed within this concept, what meaning is attributed to it and what is tried to be refuted. In this context, the core of the problem is not only the catharsis hypothesis, but also the naive and superficial operationalizations of modern psychological science. Therefore, the primary scientific obligation is to create a document that is both useful in daily life and can respond to scientific demands. Psychological analysis should be carried out so that all counter-evidence can have a meaning and be examined critically.
Psychopathologically, we are interested in the following phenomena, respectively: Defense mechanisms, repression, which are frequently seen in many disorders. splitting defense mechanism and dissociation: Consciousness disorders, dissociative disorders, amnesias without conscious motivation, hysteria, phobias, psychosomatizations, early conversions, multiple personality disorders, trauma studies, obsessions and compulsions, psychoses, adaptation and coping disorders. Splitting, translation, and repression are concepts that also belong to the normal psychological domain and healthy coping repertoire. Here we encounter the dual character of the phenomenon of catharsis. Catharsis, perhaps, has not only a healthy function (other than the purifying, dissolving and facilitating function), but also a disease function (maintaining intrusions, removal of negative emotions, etc.). There is no end to working on life/experiences, and this work can be continued until all negative emotions fade away.
2. BREUER AND FREUD'S THEORY OF CATHARISSIS
"Our experience has shown us that the very different symptoms of hysteria, valid in its natural and idiopathic manifestations, stand in close connection with the trauma that caused it, and in this context this is a visible phenomenon. We were able to associate neuralgias, paralysis, hysterical attacks, epileptoid convulsions that look like epilepsy, tic-like emotions, anorexias with constant vomiting and refusal to take food, various visual disorders, recurrent facial hallucinations and many similar pathologies with moments that have such traumas at their origin. "The wrongly established relationship between hysterical symptoms lasting for years and such a one-time pathological experience is the same thing that we are accustomed to seeing in traumatic neuroses. The origins of these pathological experiences date back to childhood, and serious illness cases are produced throughout the following years from childhood onwards. "
"The connection is quite clear: the experience of the first underlying cause will produce only one hysteria, another not a result. Therefore, the underlying first cause experience must be determined and defined completely clearly."
"In some other cases, the connection is not so apparently simple. There is a symbolic relationship between the first cause experience and the pathological phenomenon that develops later."
"Such observations prove that hysteria is a pathogenic outgrowth of a traumatic neurosis and legitimize the generalization of the concept of traumatic hysteria. In traumatic neuroses, a physical injury (an organic cause) is not an effective cause of the disease; on the contrary, the cause is a psychic trauma or an emotion of anxiety/fear. Based on our subsequent research, we saw analogically that such a psychic trauma usually underlies the majority of hysteria cases. Any life/experience that causes shame, anxiety, fear, or psychic pain can lead to such a result. The sensitivity of the personality organization of people with this experience can turn those experiences into trauma. Sometimes, not uncommonly, in a common case of hysteria, there may be a single large piece of trauma in place, many partial traumas, and a common group of occasions that may only reveal itself as a trauma after a while. As these experiences are connected to each other, it will be possible to construct the stories of pain that the person suffers from. "
"We found that when we brought to light the origin memories that gave rise to hysteria and evoked the emotions that accompanied these memories, each individual hysterical symptom disappeared immediately and irreversibly. The patient described the memory from that original experience in detail and verbalized his emotions. Origin experiences that are not linked to an affect are completely ineffective. The psychic process that has already been experienced must be repeated and expressed as vividly as possible. Only then does that experience come back with all its intensity and disappear forever (cramps, neuralgias, hallucinations, paralysis, etc.)."
3. Thomas Scheff's Catharsis Theory
p>Thomas Scheff says that the building and destruction of an emotion must be clearly distinguished from each other. Scheff, precisely, the formation of tension and excretion processes.
"The empirical basis of excretion and its related tension processes lies in the observation of patients in therapy. For example, I observed my patients crying, laughing, shaking, etc. in therapy, and I saw that my patients who showed emotion progressed quickly in therapy. While the patients who did not do this, I observed them crying, laughing, shaking, etc. "The theory focuses on the fact that states of tension are released through convulsive and involuntary body processes. The physical manifestations of these states of tension are crying (mourning/sadness), shaking and cold. sweating (anxiety), continuous laughter that is not spontaneously appropriate to the situation (embarrassment or anger), and screaming/stomping (anger) accompanied by hot sweat. Based on this, the theory gives a detailed and clear definition of catharsis. Elimination of negative emotions/ Catharsis is defined as internal, involuntary processes along with external indicators (e.g. crying, shaking, cold sweats, etc.). Similar explanations about the relationship between negative emotions and tension are also found in Plutchik (1954). The theory particularly emphasizes that it is necessary to make a distinction between negative emotion as a tension and emotion as a discharge. Of course, this distinction had not been made before! Our theory proposes that emotional tension and discharge are two separate processes that are truly opposed to each other. “
Thomas Scheff has three hypotheses:
1. Inhibition of excretion: “Emotions are a process and a metaphor for the accumulation of emotions. These accumulated emotions are transferred to other experiences and emotions are suppressed with a social sanction. The more repressed emotions accumulate, the lower a person's tolerance for other people's discharges becomes. Because this disturbs the person's own internal balance. For example, a mother who has suppressed her own mourning process covers her own grief with her child's constant crying, and the child's crying leads that mother to accumulate her suppressed grief... And this continues for generations. "
2. Repressed emotions reduce clarity in thinking and perception: "A strong A person who is under the pressure/influence of emotions is not in a position to think clearly and perceive his/her environment correctly. (Lovenfeld,1961). The self-reflective expression of this result is as follows: "I felt paralyzed with fear" or "I felt blind with anger". Unconscious emotions affect thought and perception in the same way, only the person experiencing the problem is not aware of what he is experiencing. For example, a woman might say: "Why am I such a weirdo when it comes to men?" or a student: "It's like I turn off my brain in mathematics!".
3. The accumulation of repressed emotions prevents feelings of friendship and cooperation and therefore isolates individuals from each other: "The negative emotional mood produced through accumulated emotions can lead to states such as apathy, emptiness and alienation, or to repression through socialization processes in which emotions are punished. Tomkins (1963) explains As such, a person whose emotions are punished learns to hide his inner experiences from others. Because when these feelings/experiences become known to others, this will mean adding new pain to his pain. Since such a person is not competent to share his inner experiences with others, he is most likely to be distant from others and to himself. It will live for itself.
4. Analysis of the Concept of Catharsis
The concept of catharsis is a word that has many meanings and is used in completely different meanings by various writers, experts and researchers. Even when viewed from this perspective, contradictory observations can be made. and it is quite understandable that research results can lead to confusion. Therefore, it is necessary to identify and distinguish the various meanings of the concept of catharsis.
Normal and natural catharsis manifests itself in conscious lives through experiences. That is, we perceive, we feel, we sense, we remember, we fantasize, we desire and we think. These inner experiences also express themselves externally: our pupils dilate, we breathe faster or slower, we turn white or red, we sweat, we assume this or that body posture, we choose this or that expression, we sigh or sigh when we are hindered. swears
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