Abreaction, the emotional discharge associated with trauma

Abreaction is an unconscious emotional reaction that arises when coming into contact with traumatic memories.. Generally, these experiences have their origin in childhood and leave traces of high pain that at a given moment the person represses. It is especially in psychological therapy when the mind returns to contact those fragments of yesterday.

In some way, who and more and who less knows what psychological trauma is. The person who has not experienced it firsthand surely knows someone who has gone through that situation of great mental impact. Something that frequently happens is that there are past events that one does not dare to recognize or recover from memory due to that load of negative emotions.

Living with trauma is existing in a nebula in which there are facts that are difficult to understand and not processed. Opening is a reaction that makes it easier to bring something that was hidden to consciousness through memory and verbalization. And when this happens, the most decisive therapeutic process begins.

It is not enough to make the person release all those emotions. You have to work on all that painful energy that has just emerged from the veins of trauma to heal little by little.. It is a laborious process that requires the commitment of the patient and the good work of the professional.

What is abrasion?

Abreation has its origins in Sigmund Freud and Joseph Breuer. This term is based on a neologism made up of two ideas: react and download. It was precisely in the studies on hysteria when the father of psychoanalysis described this interesting process: “It is with language where the person finds a substitute for action to make contact with the traumatic event and release it, thus originating the opening.”

This is not only a normal mechanism, but also a necessary one. Thanks to it, an affect that the psychoanalytic school defined as “strangled” is discharged, that is, a repressed and complex emotional state is released and returned to consciousness so that the patient can then work on it.

In addition, Something that both Freud and Breuer understood is that recovery does not come only by expressing or reliving emotions.. Trauma survivors must confront, understand, and work through the condition that has gone from the inside out. Let’s dig a little deeper.

Traumas always remain latent

Trauma always leaves clues. It is latent in the brain, altering the way a person reacts to certain circumstances, relates, and even perceives themselves. The traumatic also permeates the body. For example, research such as that carried out at the University of Waterloo, in Canada, highlights something in this direction.

People who suffered childhood trauma are at higher risk of developing chronic diseases. That is to say, these high-stress events are imprinted on us in many ways. And not only that, The brain has the ability to link any present stimulus with the terrifying threat of yesterday.

A smell, sound, or image can take a person back to their past to trigger an abreaction.. Then, tears arise, tremors, a feeling of alarm, confusion… If this experience appears in daily life, the person may feel blocked.

On the other hand, when it appears during therapy it is a good opportunity to remember more events and verbalize the traumatic memory. Guided release can transform the pathogenic element into a healthier state, according to psychoanalysis.

Planned abreaction and spontaneous abreaction

There are two types of abreaction: the one that arises casually as a result of stimuli linked to the trauma and the one that can be facilitated by the therapist in the middle of therapy. Thus, Techniques such as EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) frequently work on emotional abreactions.

The goal in this therapeutic approach is to transform dysfunctionally stored information into a more integrative and less pathological memory. For it, The attitude and good work of the psychologist is decisive. Because it must provide the person with constant support and security so that, from a compassionate distance, the patient can take responsibility for what happened, reformulating ideas, beliefs and emotions.

Abreactive ego state therapy

Abreaction is not used as a sole form of therapeutic tool, but is often integrated into a broader framework. Even more, it takes a professional highly trained in trauma treatment to carry it out. Because once we open that door and the person turns his face towards his past and the emotional reaction appears, it is necessary to carry out the most decisive work: working on those reminiscences.

Freud pointed out that hypnosis was a good method to work on resistance and promote abreaction. However, currently, we have models such as abreactive ego state therapy that also focuses on the treatment of trauma. What’s more, research works such as those carried out at Washington State University, support its usefulness.

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