- Abreaction
Abreaction is a psychoanalytical term for reliving an experience in order to purge it of its emotional excesses; a type of
catharsis . Sometimes it is a method of becoming conscious of repressed traumatic events.Early in his career, psychoanalyst
Carl Jung expressed interest in abreaction, or what he referred to as "trauma theory", but later decided it had limitations concerning the treatment ofneurosis . Jung stated that:"though traumata of clearly aetiological significance were occasionally present, the majority of them appeared very improbable. Many traumata were so unimportant, even so normal, that they could be regarded at most as a pretext for the neurosis. But what especially aroused my criticism was the fact that not a few traumata were simply inventions of fantasy and had never happened at all". [Collective Works of C.G. Jung: "Some Crucial Points in Psychoanalysis", Jung-Loy Correspondence (1914).]
Jung believed that the skill, devotion and self-confidence regarding the way the analyst did his work was much more important to the patient than the rehashing of old traumatic emotions.
Abreaction therapies
Abreaction therapy is a form of
psychotherapy in which abreaction is used to assist a patient suffering frompost-traumatic stress disorder by re-living the experience in a controlled environment.Hypnosis is often used as a tool for recall in abreaction therapy.Fact|date=December 2007The efficacy of this therapy has been likened to "lancing a
boil ". Exposing the wound releases the "poison" and allows the wound to heal. In the same way that the lancing process is painful, re-living the trauma can be highly distressing for the patient, and memories of the pain can be physically felt.The auditing process in
Dianetics andScientology is in several ways similar to abreaction therapy. [Atack, Jon: "A Piece of Blue Sky", page 79. Lyle Stuart, 1999.]Pop culture references
* In
Thomas Pynchon 's novelGravity's Rainbow , the main character experiences numerous abreactive episodes.
* InPeter Shaffer 's 1973 play "Equus ", the climactic scene is an abreactive episode.References
External links
* [http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/traumaptsd/a/abreact.htm Abreaction: The Baby or the Bathwater]
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