Facilitating Catharsis

Therapists should always be prepared for the unexpected. The catharsis of feelings is not always tidy. It does not always wait for you to lay the mattress and cushions on the floor and send an invitation. If strong catharsis and particularly demonstrative catharsis appears as the practitioner you need to trust the process. You must breathe. This is important to ensure that you do not get caught with any of the flagrant feelings flying around the room. Hold the space, be sure that your client cannot harm themselves physically, for example, if they are striking the arm of their chair you may need to pad it or redirect their hitting to a nearby cushion.

Your therapy space should to be able to accommodate and contain shouting, hitting, screaming, swearing, kicking, stomping, and movement of all kinds. It must be safe to express emotions, release them, and be cathartic. Your client has a right to reclaim their feelings.

When a client connects with the flow of emotional life beneath the surface we must respect the consequences for them and the lives of others close to them. While some balance is being gained, some new alignment set in their integrating and stabilizing as a feeling, emotionally expressive human being, your client may need some help and guidance concerning their primary love relationship and close friends. Because these relationships are the ones your client feels most strongly about, now feelings are flowing more freely, close and loved ones may need  help to understand what is happening in the client’s inner world and what is now being expressed in the client’s outer world.

Become sensitive to your client’s needs and you can help him or her to re-engage with their emotions. People are not all the same -- no slogans about allowing or encouragements to release are as effective as the wisdom that underpins the effective guidance that comes out of a genuine understanding of your client. You may need to be tremendously slow, gentle, and sensitive, patient and understanding. For some what seems a very small movement to you may be immense from their perspective. Never assume your sense of proportion equals that of your client.

There are a variety of principal messages which you may want to be aware of and they may underpin your approach with any given client. Here are a few pointers.

• Your emotions are acceptable and it is OK to feel.
• Everything inside you is natural and human.
• Feelings are natural and desirable; they fulfill our humanness.
• You can feel and set the boundary between us.
• It is alright to feel hurt.
• You have permission to be angry.
• I will listen to your feelings.
• Emotions are not shameful; you do not have to feel guilty for feeling them.
• You have a right to your emotions; you deserve to feel, your feelings are valuable.
• Your emotions are of value.
• Your feelings are worth listening to, worth my time, and they deserve to be recognized and acknowledged.

In Sacred Attention Therapy we work with shared reflection, which includes the client in the process of developing awareness on a mutual, equitable relationship. A final thought about emotional repression in therapy: you only feel strong emotions toward people you care about. This is important. Anger can bind you as much as love. The surplus of emotions your client is bearing in their psyche – many of them are related to people who really mattered when they were young. These emotions now bind them to those people. So, do not be surprised if your client begins to have powerful feelings toward you – and they may well be negative ones.

When your client directs negative emotions toward you, simply try and stay out of the way and recognize the effectiveness of having these powerful feelings expressed now they are real and present in the therapy room. The connection to the important figures from early life will emerge; just trust the process… and when it does the source of the emotions will become clear and presage the healing transformation.

Personal therapy takes place through the Process of Self-Discovery in which the wounds of the past are healed. As you pass through the final stages of personal awakening, through forgiveness and attaining wholeness by owning the shadow or all you have denied, you enter into a realm of heart feeling that is more alive and vivid than emotions ever were before.

Real emotions flow after the dammed-up ones are finally released. Only when these present responsive emotions are flowing do we come to truly experience authentic emotionality. It is like turning on a bright light. No longer are emotions and your feeling life a reactive affair, no longer do emotions bruise, hurt, and crush you. A vibrant, life-giving torrent of experience awaits you in the second and the third stages of awakening. In time, you will look back and it seems as if the world that was in black and white is now flashing and brilliant, dazzling with a new dimension of feeling and emotion.

Richard Harvey is a psycho-spiritual psychotherapist, spiritual teacher, and author. He is the founder of The Center for Human Awakening and has developed a form of depth-psychotherapy called Sacred Attention Therapy (SAT) that proposes a 3-stage model of human awakening. Richard can be reached at [email protected].