Section Headings [ Change in Terminology] [ Abreaction of Guilt] [ Abreaction of Pride]

[ End Stages] [ Universality of Abreaction] [ Examples of Abreaction]

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 auto-suggestion. 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 ; 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 components to them. Abreaction forces a person to confront and face such components, no matter how much he /she may wish to avoid them. Abreaction has the effect of eliminating the anxiety attached to negative beliefs. By eliminating anxiety and fostering understanding, abreaction enables a person to let go of their negative beliefs and so upgrade their current standards (see previous article). 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.

Copyright @2002  Ian Heath
All Rights Reserved

The copyright is mine and the articles are free to use. They can be reproduced anywhere, so long as the source is acknowledged.