Is catharsis Primal Therapy?
(See abreaction for more details) Catharsis is a discharge of emotion, or at best the release of a disconnected feeling. It is not therapeutic and has only a temporary effect of releasing tension. It can lead to overload, because feeling channels are opened without the subsequent connection and integration. It is never curative. All abreactive techniques are used in the absence of proper procedures. A classical and very counterproductive one is “breathing the patients” when the therapist fails to help them into feeelings.
