Emotions and Catharsis

A close friend of mine, asked me a few important questions about the emotions: Are emotions more to do with the past or the future? Are emotions more to do with the imagination or reality? Are emotions or thoughts experienced first?

The question as to whether the emotions, are more to do with the past or the present, are ideologically to do with whether a theory is a radical, or a more so-called modern mental health theory.

Radical theory tends to emphasise emotions, blocks, and catharsis or release, usually to do with releasing, the negative emotions of past traumatic events, such abuse, loss, or mistreatment. Whereas, so-called modern mental health theories of emotions, tend to focus on present negative emotions and treatment, and also focus on present, positive emotions, and self-control. So the answer to my friend’s first question, is often a case of "Who pays the piper, calls the tune".

The trouble with a lot of radical, or catharsis theories of emotions, is that they tend to be deterministic and mechanistic, fail to acknowledge that people release and cathart emotions when abusing or mistreating others, and they over-focus on releasing only negative emotions, and tend to state, that there is only one way of releasing negative emotions - either through sexuality, deep breathing techniques, primal screaming - or crying.

A person in the mental health chat room I frequent, gave the brilliant analogy of a battery, to which he said, that emotional well-being, all depends on how the positive emotions, connect to the negative ones, and that if you only focus on the negative ones - without a mutual connection between the positive and negative - then you get a dead battery.

The trouble with so-called modern mental health theory, is that they deny the reality, of past emotional pain and suffering, caused by traumatic events such as abuse, and force people to repress those things, in favour of dealing with simply present negative and positive emotions.

From personal experience, I have found times when I very much needed to release negative emotions, through crying, and which made me feel better afterwards, but I have also found, that I needed to focus on experiencing, and connecting, to positive emotions as well. These positive emotions then, were not simply released, but also stored, or had a good influence in my mind and/or memory, and connected to the negative emotions, in a way that enabled some kind of mutual reciprocity, and transformation. Both positive and negative emotions, can have a good influence, in increasing our sensitivity and awareness, of things like love, empathy, and compassion, and again, all depend upon how the negative connects to and is influenced by the positive, and vice versa.

I tend to think and believe, that the mind and emotions, think and feel in terms of association, or associative influences or links, and that present positive or negative emotions, can be influentially linked to past ones, and vice versa, although I realise that association theory is limited, and that associative feeling and thinking theory, historically paved the way for behaviourism in psychology, which I tend to dislike, because behaviourism objectifies and punishes people, with instinctual associative responses, and treats them like animals, without human potential for choices and change.

What I have discovered, about the emotions and thoughts, is that some things are linked by association, and some things aren’t - but that the links connect like road maps - in unusual and indirect ways, sometimes halted by blocks, and sometimes prolonged, distracted, or suspended by different winding paths and tunnels, where they link up, break off or divert in different directions, and then link up again.

This, and the battery analogy, is also how thoughts and emotions, are experienced first at different times, according to the situation and responses, and from individual to individual, and it is the more complex association theory I believe in, which is more truthful and accurate, from both experience and observation.