Psychology Today | 29.09.2026 00:03
A key concept in the psychoanalytic tradition was catharsis. Breuer and Freud defined this as “the process of reducing or eliminating a complex by recalling it to conscious awareness and allowing it to be expressed.”[1] Over many subsequent years, this concept appears to have morphed into the popular assumption that it's “good to emote.” Repression of feeling was thought to keep us locked in mental ill-health, while the expression of feelings could release us into well-being.
