Life Span Development II School Age and Adolescence

Life Span Development II: School age and Adolescence 3 (2+1)

Lesson 20 : Emotions during adolescence

Emotional Catharsis

Sigmund Freud theorized that people store hostile and aggressive urges in the mind like water in the reservoir. If the reservoir fills to overflowing, a wave of hostility may spill over in the form of a highly aggressive act. The reservoir can release some of these pent up urges gradually in small ‘safe’ amounts, it is less likely to overflow. This release of emotional energy is called catharsis. It was presumed that catharsis was healthy because it drains excessive emotions, hostility, thereby helping to prevent intensely violent acts.

Proponents of catharsis suggested constructive and safe ways to release hostility. The ways should be to watch aggressive sports or movies on T.V. Other ways include jogging, chopping wood, hitting a punching bag, stamping one’s feet, playing aggressive and competitive games, drawing violent pictures, expressing one’s feelings verbally and physically aggression. The notion of catharsis was widely accepted by psychologists.

He gave the term talking cure as one of the ways of catharsis. It is talking to a person who are trust worthy and he is allowed to express all the repressed feelings and the emotions in an unconditional environment where which the hidden emotions will be surfacing and the person will be relived of this pressure of the hidden emotions.