Catharsis, or katharsis, comes from the Ancient Greek word katharsis, meaning "purification" or "cleansing." It describes the process of removing or expressing strong emotions or thoughts, which can lead to a feeling of emotional renewal and balance.

In dramaturgy, the term often refers to the way plays or performances make an audience feel strong emotions, such as sadness or fear, and then help them release those feelings, leaving them feeling more at peace.

In Ancient Greek, the word originally described physical purification practices. In medicine, it still refers to the removal of menstrual fluid or the process of helping the body pass waste more quickly. A substance that aids this process is called a "cathartic."

The first recorded use of the term in a mental context was by Aristotle in his writings Politics and Poetics. He compared how music and tragedy could affect a person’s mind to how catharsis could affect the body.

In Greek religious beliefs, the term also described the spiritual cleansing process in the Catholic idea of purgatory. Greek Neoplatonists, a group of philosophers, used the word to describe spiritual purification.

The word "Catharism" was used by people outside a Christian group to describe their beliefs, which focused on purity and spiritual cleanliness.

In psychology, the term is linked to Freudian psychoanalysis. It refers to the process of bringing hidden traumatic experiences to the surface of the mind, helping people release these emotions and feel more content.

Purification ritual

The words kathairein (κᾰθαίρειν, "to purify") and related terms appear in the works of Homer, describing purification rituals. These words, kathairein and katharos (κᾰθᾰρός, "pure"), became widely used in Greek. Scholars believe these terms may have come from the Semitic word qatar ("to fumigate").

Aithiopis, a later epic from the Trojan War cycle, tells the story of Achilles being purified after he kills Thersites.

Later, the Greeks developed new ways to remove blood guilt, believing that "blood is purified through blood." This practice was part of Hellenistic culture, where the oracle of Delphi played an important role. A well-known example is the story of Orestes, found in tragedy. However, the method described by Aeschylus is ancient: the blood of a sacrificed piglet is allowed to flow over a person who has blood guilt, and then running water washes away the blood. The same ritual appears on a krater discovered at Canicattini, where it is shown being used to cure the daughters of Proetus from madness caused by a ritual mistake.

When asked whether the ritual provides forgiveness or healing, Burkert says: "To raise the question is to see the irrelevance of this distinction."

Platonism

In Platonism, catharsis is part of the soul's gradual journey toward knowledge. It helps the soul move beyond the senses and understand the clear, pure world of ideas. For Neoplatonists like Plotinus and Porphyry, catharsis means removing strong emotions or desires. This process helps people clearly see the difference between types of virtues. In the second section of the first Ennead, Plotinus explains how civic virtues, which are related to society and politics, are less important than cathartic virtues. Civic virtues bring order and beauty to the physical world. (Enneads, I,2,2) They contain a small part of the highest good but do not help the soul unite with the divine. Porphyry explains that civic virtues help control personal emotions and allow people to live peacefully with others. (Sentences, XXXIX) Cathartic virtues are needed to become like the divine. They help the soul separate from the physical world and from things that are not its true nature, allowing it to think about the Mind (Nous).

Passive psychological

Catharsis is a term used in dramatic art to describe an effect that a performance has on its audience.

The first known use of the word in a mental sense was by Aristotle in his work Politics. He wrote about the role of music and how it can help people learn, feel relief from strong emotions, and enjoy themselves. He mentioned that music can be used for education, for helping people feel emotionally balanced, and for entertainment. He also noted that certain types of music can cause people to feel as if they have gone through a process of emotional release, similar to a medical treatment.

In his work Poetics, Aristotle explained that tragedy, or dramatic storytelling, helps people feel relief from emotions like pity and fear. He described this relief as katharsis. Before writing Poetics, Aristotle mostly used the word katharsis in its medical meaning, referring to the removal of bodily fluids. Some scholars, like F. L. Lucas, argue that the term should be translated as "purgation" rather than "purification" or "cleansing," because it refers to the removal of emotional extremes.

Gerald F. Else disagreed with the idea that katharsis means emotional cleansing. He believed that Aristotle did not see drama as a way to cure mental illnesses but as a way to help people experience normal emotions.

German writer Gotthold Ephraim Lessing saw katharsis as a way to balance emotions like pity and fear, helping people feel them in a healthy way. He believed that watching tragedies teaches people how to manage these emotions properly.

Other scholars, like G. F. Else, argued that the meanings of katharsis as "purification" or "purgation" come from other writings by Aristotle and others, not from Poetics. This has led to many different interpretations of the term. The word is often discussed alongside Aristotle's idea of anagnorisis, which refers to a moment of recognition in a story.

Elizabeth Belfiore believed that katharsis is a process where emotions like pity and fear lead to a different kind of emotional release. She explored this idea in her book Tragic Pleasures: Aristotle on Plot and Emotion.

In the twentieth century, some scholars began to see katharsis as a way to gain intellectual understanding. They argued that watching tragedies helps people think and learn, which matches Aristotle's idea that the pleasure of art comes from learning and reasoning.

Aristotle's ideas about mimesis (imitation in art) and katharsis were a response to Plato's belief that art could harm people by making them too emotional. Aristotle believed that katharsis helps people control their emotions, which contradicts Plato's view. Most scholars agree that all interpretations of katharsis—whether as purgation, purification, or intellectual understanding—describe a process where emotions like pity and fear are managed.

D. W. Lucas, in his edition of Poetics, discussed the many meanings of katharsis in an appendix. He connected it to the Greek idea of "humors," which has not been widely accepted. Today, the ideas of purgation and purification are still commonly used, but the idea of katharsis as intellectual understanding has also gained support.

Some playwrights have tried to change or avoid the effects of katharsis for political or artistic reasons. For example, Bertolt Brecht believed that katharsis was a tool used by traditional theater to make audiences feel passive. He created plays that left emotions unresolved, hoping to encourage audiences to take action in the real world. This approach became the basis of his "epic theater," which used techniques to keep audiences emotionally distant from the story.

Brazilian dramatist Augusto Boal also explored ways to change the role of katharsis in theater, but his ideas are not fully detailed in the text.

Active and conversational psychological

Jakob Bernays was a German philosopher who wrote books about Aristotle's ideas about drama in 1857 and 1880. These books led to many writings about catharsis in German-speaking areas.

In this environment, Austrian psychiatrist Josef Breuer created a treatment method called catharsis using hypnosis for people with intense hysteria in the early 1890s. While under hypnosis, Breuer’s patients could remember painful experiences. By expressing emotions they had hidden and forgotten (which caused mental health problems), they felt better. Breuer became a teacher to Sigmund Freud, an Austrian psychiatrist who later married Bernays’ niece. Together, Breuer and Freud wrote the book Studies on Hysteria in 1895. This book explained the cathartic method and was the first published work about psychoanalysis.

A person’s reaction to trauma only has a full “cathartic” effect if it is a proper reaction, such as revenge. However, language can act as a substitute for action. Through language, emotions that were hidden and forgotten can be released almost as well.

As Freud developed psychoanalysis, catharsis remained an important part of his work. After trying hypnosis and finding it not effective, Freud replaced it with free association, where patients speak freely about their thoughts.

The term cathexis is used in modern psychotherapy, especially in Freudian psychoanalysis, to describe the process of experiencing deep emotions tied to past events that were once hidden or ignored. These emotions were never fully addressed or experienced.

Psychodrama is a therapy where people use spontaneous acting, role-playing, and dramatic self-presentation to explore and understand their lives. It includes elements of theater, often performed on a stage or a space that acts like a stage, with props used as needed.

Psychodrama was developed by American psychiatrist Jacob Moreno, who was born in Romania and Austria, and later by his wife, Zerka Moreno, a psychologist from the Netherlands and the UK. Jacob was a contemporary of Freud but disagreed with many of Freud’s ideas. He created psychodrama in New York in 1925. In 1929, he started an Impromptu Theater at Carnegie Hall. In 1936, he founded the Beacon Hill Sanitarium and the Therapeutic Theater. In 1942, the Morenos created the Psychodramatic Institute in New York.

In a psychodrama therapy group, a leader called a psychodramatist helps participants reenact real-life or past situations (or mental processes) in the present. This allows participants to evaluate their behavior, reflect on how the past affects the present, and gain deeper understanding of their lives.

Other forms of cathartic drama therapy, such as Theater of the Oppressed, have also been developed.

Playback Theatre is a type of improvisational theater where audience members or group members share stories from their lives, and these stories are acted out on the spot. This can have healing benefits.

There are also other types of expressive therapies that use different kinds of art.

Primal therapy is a type of therapy for trauma, created by American psychologist Arthur Janov. He believes that mental health problems come from repressed pain from childhood trauma. Janov argues that this pain can be brought to awareness through re-experiencing specific events and fully expressing the emotions during therapy. He believes the term Pain (with a capital letter) refers to repressed emotional distress and its long-term effects. Janov criticizes traditional talking therapies because they focus on the brain’s thinking areas and do not reach the deeper parts of the nervous system where Pain is stored.

Primal therapy aims to help people relive childhood pain—experiences they felt, not just thought about—in an effort to resolve the pain by fully processing and integrating it. The goal is to reduce the influence of early trauma on adult behavior.

Emotional situations can cause physical, behavioral, mental, expressive, and personal changes in people. People often use social sharing to release emotions in a cathartic way.

Bernard Rimé studied how people share emotions after emotional events. His research shows that people often seek social support to change their situation and restore balance. Rimé found that 80–95% of emotional experiences are shared with others. People often talk about these experiences repeatedly to others over hours, days, or weeks. These results show that this behavior happens regardless of the emotion’s type, gender, education, or culture. His studies also found that people share emotions more when the emotions are stronger.

If emotions are shared and make the listener feel something, the listener may share the story with others. Rimé calls this “secondary social sharing.” If this continues, it is called “tertiary social sharing.”

Émile Durkheim proposed emotional stages of social sharing.

Scientists who study emotions have found differences in why people share positive and negative emotions.

A study by Christopher Langston found that people share positive events to enjoy the positive emotions they create. Remembering these events increases happiness and long-term well-being. A study by Shelly Gable and others confirmed this idea, showing that relationships improve when partners respond positively to shared happy memories. In general, people share positive events to remember the happiness, inform others, and gain attention. These are all parts of a process called “capitalization.”

Bernard Rimé’s research suggests that people share negative emotions to vent, understand, connect with others, and get support. People who experience negative emotions often seek meaning in life and support to deal with loneliness after a sad event.

When communities face emotional events, members often share their feelings. After the 2001 New York and 2004 Madrid terrorist attacks, more than 80% of people shared their emotions with others. According to Rimé, each time someone shares emotions, both the person sharing and the listener feel the emotions again. This makes them want to share more. Sharing emotions widely in a community leads to many memories of the event and “emotional overheating.”

James Pennebaker and Kent Harber described three stages of how groups respond to emotional events.

In his book Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon analyzed how colonial racism affected people in early 1900s France. He also discussed how groups might experience collective catharsis in colonial settings. Fanon’s ideas show how cultural and social stories affect both white and black people in colonized areas. He explained how these stories can channel group anger and create rules that support racism and negative self-views among black people.