abreaction


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abreaction

 [ab″re-ak´shun]
the expression of emotions associated with repressed material, usually of an anxiety-provoking or conflictual nature, which is brought into a person's awareness and relived. See also catharsis.

ab·re·ac·tion

(ab-rē-ak'shŭn),
In freudian psychoanalysis, an episode of emotional release or catharsis associated with the conscious recollection of repressed unpleasant experiences.

abreaction

/ab·re·ac·tion/ (ab″re-ak´shun) the reliving of an experience in such a way that previously repressed emotions associated with it are released.

abreaction

[ab′rē·ak′shən]
Etymology: L, ab, from, re, again, agere, to act
an emotional release resulting from mentally reliving or bringing into consciousness, through the process of catharsis, a long-repressed, painful experience. See also catharsis. abreact, v.

abreaction

Emotional release or discharge associated with recall and resolution of mental trauma experienced and repressed in childhood. A therapeutic effect may occur through partial discharge or desensitisation of the painful emotions and increased insight.

abreaction

Psychiatry Emotional release or discharge associated with remembering and resolving repressed mental trauma experienced and repressed in childhood. See False memory.

ab·re·ac·tion

(ab-rē-ak'shŭn)
freudian psychoanalysis An emotional release or catharsis associated with the recollection of previously repressed unpleasant experiences.

abreaction

A process used in PSYCHOTHERAPY in which repressed thoughts and feelings are brought into consciousness and ‘relived’. Abreaction is, it is hoped, followed by CATHARSIS and is most readily achieved when the trouble arises from a recent traumatic event.

abreaction (aˑ·brē·akˈ·shn),

n the remembrance and release of emotions relating to a repressed experience or trauma that can occur on its own or be induced artificially, as through hypnosis. See also catharsis.
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References in periodicals archive ?
Huntly's physical abreaction of this trauma is complicated, however, by the cultural context in which it transpires.
Deliberate unknowing and strategic retelling: the ravages of cultural desire in Charles Brockden Brown's Edgar Huntly
Discrete events often require catharsis and abreaction, but it is only in working-through, in the transference, and in the resistance that can unlock the underlying dynamic which girded and perpetuated the abuse and binds the client to that suffering in later life.
Letters in Response to "Recovered Memory Therapy: A Dubious Practice Technique"
For Lorca, duende was the numen of a system of beliefs which promised to validate his poetic philosophy by abreaction of his creative tensions.
MISTICISMO Y LUJURIA: THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE IN POEMA DEL CANTE JONDO
Abreaction means that your problem exists because you have not expressed some negative feeling.
Relevance of Self-Esteem to Mental Health
One of the most effective methods is abreaction, which gradually desensitizes the patient to the alarming stimuli created by the traumatic event.
Compensation neurosis rides again: a practitioner's guide to defending PTSD claims
Paradoxically, Secretary Babbitt's commendable National Biological Survey and natural communities conservation planning initiatives have been largely thwarted by the abreaction to ESA disputes.
Noah's Choice: The Future of Endangered Species
Satire, parody, absurdity, stark realism, and abreaction all became tools in the Modernist's at tempts to untangle social, moral, and spiritual "truths" The Modern artist manipulated objects and concepts in abstract ways to produce cosmic or chaotic reorganizations of our philosophical constructs.
Chaos and cosmos: the search for meaning in modern art
7) For detailed analyses of gender, psychoanalysis and The Cat People, see Deborah Linderman, "Cinematic Abreaction in Tourneur's The Cat People," in E.
The couch affair: gender and race in Hollywood transference
The realization that everyone has a breaking point and the introduction of narcotherapy (the drug-facilitation of abreaction, the reliving of an experience in order to purge it of its emotional excess) for some cases of acute combat neurosis constituted major advances in the second phase of the world conflict, which began in 1939.
Narcotherapy in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorders: a report of two cases
This may be called a flashback, reliving experience or abreaction.
Understanding the effects of trauma on lives of offenders
Besides assisting in the recapturing of lost memories, Courtois (1999) lists other useful purposes in using hypnosis including the abreaction of the trauma, in the identification of and reconnection with disowned parts of the self, in pain management and substance control, and as a means of relaxation and self management.
Recovered memory debate revisited: practice implications for mental health counselors
Pynchon's vocabulary was fantastically recondite, and I still have the notebook in which I jotted down the meanings of oneiric, abreaction, runcible spoon, hebephrenics, Antinomian, rachitic, velleity, preterite, and a couple dozen other words impossible to use in ordinary conversation.
Pynchon from A to V: Rocket redux; Gerald Howard on Gravity's Rainbow: Remembered, reread, reconsidered

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