# Debunking the catharsis myth

- **Episode:** [163](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/163.md) (2025-01-16)
- **Type:** other
- **Tags:** anger, catharsis, myth
- **Time:** 22:57–29:14 (start 1377s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/163?t=1377](https://truthliesandwork.com/163?t=1377)

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[22:57] Al Elliott: Well, great question. And I would say there's really a couple of things. First, the idea of catharsis as an approach is rooted in Aristotle, right? I mean, this is as old as it gets when it comes to a way of dealing with anger. So we've got a pretty significant history we've got to undo. In psychology, it took off with Freud, who really had this hydraulic model for how human emotions worked and the belief that we have to let out steam in order to deal with our anger, right? Otherwise, we'd explode. Sort of a pressure cooker type of mentality. And Freud, for all of the ways in which he was wrong, still had a pretty profound impact on the field of psychiatry and the fields of psychiatry and psychology. And so we're still living with that impact. And I think part of the problem is, I mean, there are sort of 2 parts of this problem, actually. The first is that it's a really It feels like it's accurate, right? It feels like that should be true, right? Why not? Why don't I have to let it out somewhere? And so it feels like it should be true in that way. The other part of it is that typically when people do sort of explode and break things or whatever, they feel good. They feel better afterwards. So it feels like it helps that way too. I'll just give you an example. I had to take a load of stuff to the dump recently, right? And we just filled up the back of my minivan and went to the dump. And at one point I took— my son had a loft, we were taking it apart. And so it was all just like bits of wood and stuff. And at one point I just decided I'm going to see how far I can throw this 2x4. And I did. And it was oddly satisfying. Like, it felt really good to just throw this thing as far as I could into the dump. And I And I think that's true for a lot of people. It feels good, therefore it must work. But of course, overeating probably feels good, right? That doesn't necessarily mean it's a good, productive way of dealing with emotions. Substances like alcohol and other drugs feel good. That doesn't necessarily mean that they're good, healthy ways of coping. There's lots of things that feel good that don't necessarily make those things good for us
[25:35] Leanne Elliott: Yeah
[25:36] Al Elliott: And what we— So I think that also adds to this problem or this perception problem. The reason we know it's not good is because the people who do it frequently, the people who are taught to do it frequently, they have more long-term problems with anger, and they even have more short-term problems with anger. So they're more likely to be aggressive. They're more likely to have relationship problems. They're more likely to engage in all of these things. And this is even true when we do it in experimental-type designs where we bring someone into a lab, we break them into 2 groups. We say, hey, you're going to punch this punching bag for an hour. And then we say to the other group— not an hour, but 10 minutes. And we're going to say to this other group, hey, you're going to do some other task. We find that the group that's been punching something, they end up being more aggressive and more angry after that than they were before
[26:30] Leanne Elliott: I really enjoyed the first part of your book, which talks all about the different research and misconceptions and aspects of anger and case studies as well you bring into it. I mean, was there a favorite piece of, of research for you, or a favorite case study that you felt just really demonstrated how to deal with angry people, or what we need to understand about angry people first to be able to deal with them?
[26:56] Al Elliott: Yeah. There's a couple of stories there that I really like. One of them is the— I think it's the first case study I talk about in the book, is a woman talking about her relationship with her dad. And it was just a phenomenal story to hear, partially because she was so insightful and so thoughtful. She was actually, and is now, a practicing psychologist as well. At the time, she was in grad school and So she shared a lot of insight into understanding her dad's anger and where it came from and its impact on her, its impact on their relationship, its impact on her future relationships. And so it was a really, really thoughtful, powerful interview for me. And it also even, I think, touches on some of those other elements too about About kind of the genetic component, modeling, what we learn, just the complicated and nuanced way that anger can inform our relationships and shape who we are. So I love that particular story. The other one I love is the case study about the director of the performing arts center talking about when they reopened after COVID
[28:17] Leanne Elliott: Yeah
[28:18] Al Elliott: And essentially the day she had dealing with angry and aggressive crowds, because it really speaks to that contagion element. And in particular, what was interesting about that is the way she described it. As she said, some of the anger she was experiencing that day felt performative. It felt like people were actually trying to rile up the crowd. And so there's sort of two 2 really interesting elements there. There's the contagion that happens accidentally, right, that you don't know about, where just you're surrounded by angry people and you start to feel angry. But then there's also the contagion that happens intentionally, where someone is trying to sort of incite a mob, essentially, or trying to incite that kind of aggression and anger. And those things are both overlapping and potentially really scary and can put people in So you've mentioned that anger is contagious