The ability to understand, accept and welcome terrifying passages in psychoanalysis and in art is what allows the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis to occur and what makes art impactful. These experiences are essential to all psychoanalytic therapies, especially when working with patients who have suffered severe early trauma. In support of the importance of the afore mentioned ability, in this paper I trace a parallel between the psychoanalytic method, which facilitates the emergence of painful, transformative and at times terrifying experiences in the relationship between patient and analyst and ‘Cruelty’ as defined by Antonin Artaud in his First Manifesto of The Theatre of Cruelty initially published in 1932.

Artaud created the term ‘Cruelty’ to refer to the powerful, painful, transformative experience that a genuine theater should provoke in the audience. It is an acute happening in which some blurring of the boundaries between audience and performers takes place. I am including the concept of ‘cruelty’ as a phenomenon that, although often repressed or suppressed from consciousness, is present in all psychoanalytic encounters. I elaborate on the concept of ‘cruelty’ using Artaud's work as a background and pay particular attention to non-verbal communications and the inanimate environment present in the analytic encounter.