<p><strong>Catharsis</strong> or <strong>katharsis</strong> is an Ancient Greek word meaning "cleansing" or "purging".</p><p>This concept is used in various settings.</p><p>In<strong> theater </strong>Catharsis refers to the emotional relief the audience can experience when watching a comedy, melodrama or drama .</p><p>In the <strong>older medicine</strong> the term Catharsis has been used to refer politely to the purging of the bowels. The laxative used to trigger the catharsis was called a cathartic.</p><p>Since Freud several strands of <strong>modern psychotherapy</strong> use the concept of catharsis to describe the letting go of deep emotions, supposedly related to events in the individual's past that at the time had not been adequately addressed or expressed, but instead had been suppressed or ignored.</p><p>Catharsis refers also to an emotional release that can happen during a dream or when people address the underlying causes of a current problem they are having.<span> </span></p><h3>Felt Shift</h3><p><span>The <strong>Felt Shift</strong> is a </span><span>more subtle form of catharsis </span><span>closely related to the above mentioned </span>emotional release that can happen when people address the underlying causes of a current problem they are having.&nbsp;<span> The <strong>Felt Shift</strong>. is a concept developed by <strong>Eugene Gendlin</strong> and implemented in his <strong>Focusing </strong>approach. A <strong>Felt Shift</strong> as body experience happens when there is a breakthrough into new meaning.</span></p><h2><span><hr /></span></h2><h2>Research into Catharsis</h2><p>Evidence-based research seems to cover three areas</p><ol><li>Research into the health effects of Catharsis generally.</li><li>Research that confirms positively discharge of specific emotions, e.g laughter</li><li>Research that confirms negative outcomes of discharge, especially that of anger and fear.</li></ol><h3>1. General Catharsis research</h3><p>One co-counsellor P.J Hawkins has written his PhD about Discharge: <a title="Catharsis in Psychotherapy" href="/en/node/858">Catharsis in Psychotherapy</a></p><h3></h3><h3>2. Research about Laughter as Discharge</h3><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>3. Research about Anger discharge</h3><p>Research seems to suggest that "Blowing off steam" may reduce physiological stress in the short term. However, this discharge may act as a reward mechanism promoting future outbursts.instead of developing more effective behaviours coping with the anger triggering situations.</p><p><span><hr size="3" /></span></p>

A co-operative inquiry into Co-Counselling as a personal Development Method

Summary

The work has three objectives.  The first is to evaluate co-counselling using an experiential research model known as co-operative inquiry.  The second is to reflect on the research process itself, and to look at the ways we think about knowledge and construct patterns of meaning.  The third is to place the enterprise in the context of fundamental beliefs about health and health development.  The study as a whole is therefore a personal document rather than a collective one: it is not a report from the inquiry group on its findings.

CoCoInfo Tags
Cooperative Inquiry
Free Attention
Catharsis

Thoughts on how all co-counsellors can work together

In light of recent dialogues on diversity in co-counselling networks, I have been asking myself:   How can I continue my wonderful co-counselling international journey  without fear of being thought of as “not quite doing it right“?  How can new co-counsellors and co-counsellors from all over the world continue to flourish and work together in sessions and in groups, while celebrating our many differences as people and co-counsellors?  I discovered the  article on the management of catharsis by John Heron which captures some of my thoughts, especially in the wa

CoCoInfo Tags
Diversity
Catharsis
Client In Charge