Cathartic Method

Cathartic Method, a form of psychotherapy first proposed by Breuer, developed by him with the participation of Freud and laying the foundation for the development of psychoanalysis. The C.M. proceeds from the assumption that in a person who has suffered a psychic trauma and has not "reacted" to it by an outburst of the corresponding affect, the original traumatic experience is subjected to repression from consciousness. The suppressed, unreacted affect is thereby "crushed" and, remaining connected with the repressed experience in the subconscious area, conditions a series of pathological reflections of the latter in consciousness and the somatic state of the personality, reflections that are incomprehensible and inexplicable for the subject himself (hysterical attacks, paralyses, obsessive states, etc.), but which are symbols of various moments connected with the trauma. For the relief of the patient from these pathological phenomena, in the opinion of Breuer and Freud, it is necessary to revive in memory all repressed moments, the liberation and reaction of the "crushed" affect. In the case of the patient on whom the theory of psychocatharsis was developed, this was achieved by a series of hypnotic sessions. Every time as soon as the patient received in hypnosis the opportunity to vividly imagine and live through the psychic process that led to the formation of the given symptom, the liberation of the "crushed" affect occurred, i.e., the patient had tears, angry excitement, etc., and the symptom disappeared without a trace. Freud himself, in his subsequent psychotherapeutic attempts, very quickly abandoned the use of hypnosis, replacing it with the method of free associations, and thus passed to psychoanalysis in its present form. However, many other psychotherapists (e.g., Frank) continue to apply the C.M. in the form developed by Breuer to this day. The technique of the C.M. consists in the fact that the patient is put into a light hypnotic state while preserving orientation in the surroundings and without inducing cataleptic phenomena. He is asked to fixate all those subjective optical phenomena that appear in the field of view with closed eyes, and it is suggested that he will, as in a dream, experience events that occurred to him earlier. The degree of brightness of such reproduced experiences can be different: in some cases the patient does not distinguish them from reality, in others it is only about more or less bright images, and finally sometimes there is only a verbal memory of what happened. The application of the C.M. is considered especially indicated where the conduct of psychoanalysis is difficult, i.e., on the one hand with children and primitive personalities, on the other hand with the elderly and excessively withdrawn people.