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I think we have all been impressed by Dr Binstock's eloquence, and everyone will wish to congratulate him on the vividness of his presentation. Many, too, will think he is right to draw our attention to certain trends in modern psychological therapeutics which are less than respectable; but I think it should be emphasized that these are by no means confined to the United States, and are rapidly acquiring the favour of fashion in other parts of the world.
Dr Binstock, in one of his conclusions, shows particular concern at current methods of 'sensitivity training' and 'encounter groups', and he studies the implication that an induced, public, display of emotion is somehow supposed to lead to a feeling of self-improvement. It is therefore not perhaps surprising that he has chosen to take, as his point of departure, the Aristotelian doctrine of tragedy, namely the belief that, through the spectator's experience, a sense of ennoblement is wrought upon him through the purgation (or catharsis) of pity and terror. Dr Binstock's argument is therefore able to move, surefootedly, from a consideration of drama to a critique of histrionics.
I am not a classical scholar, and I have nothing to say about Aristotle's work on Poetics which would be of the slightest consequence for the student of drama or of psychoanalysis alike. I shall comment only on certain questions raised by Dr Binstock's highly interesting paper; and I shall not attempt any detailed discussion of his argument. Others, perhaps, will feel better qualified to do so.
It seems, however, important to say at the outset that it may be mistaken to equate 'catharsis', in the sense of purgation, with 'catharsis' in the sense of abreaction. Although the Encyclopaedia Britannica discusses them both under the same heading, we should hesitate to assume their equivalence. And I think we should bear in mind that, when Aristotle spoke of 'purgation', he was using a metaphor—vivid, perhaps, and valuable as such; but still, fo