New Ideas in Psychology

[ Terminology ] [ Abreaction of Guilt ] [ Abreaction of Pride ]

[ End Stages ] [ Universality ] [ Examples ]

Abreaction is a universal experience for everyone because it is not possible to avoid it.

When a person walks the path of personal development, he or she has to come to terms with their unpleasant memories and the sense of guilt that they induce. Guilt disturbs the person, and the anxiety that accompanies it helps to control him or her, since anxiety is one of the causes of determinism. Hence on the path of personal development the person will have to endure many periods of anxiety. If he or she wants to understand why, then they have to sustain a long psycho-analysis. This necessitates the repeated experience of abreaction.

Since abreaction is a very distressing experience, can a person avoid it and still practice personal development ? A common alternative to the attempt to understand oneself is the focus on will power and the denial of whatever is felt to be unpleasant about oneself. So the development of will power, aided by denial and repression, is often the dominant theme in psychic practices such as contemplation and meditation, and even in forms of autosuggestion. This theme is just the need to control the mind, but the practitioner is using their will to achieve this, and not their understanding.

Another variant is the practice of cultivating emotional ecstasies, as in some mystical practices ; here the practitioner is allowing themself to be swept away by their emotions – the very opposite of control.

Are these a genuine alternative to abreaction ?
Unfortunately, the answer is no!

Neither will power nor emotional ecstasies offer adequate solutions to the problems of the world, and most of these problems have moral and ethical issues within them. Abreaction forces a person to confront and face such issues, no matter how much he / she may wish to avoid them. By eliminating anxiety and fostering understanding, abreaction enables a person to upgrade their current standards. This upgrading is part of the function of resentment and bitterness. So no devotee of personal development can avoid abreaction.

In the next article I give some Examples of abreaction.

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Copyright © 2002 Ian Heath
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