Do you know what ab-reaction, also spelled abbreviation, means? This article will be enriching as we will deal with the topic in its various dimensions. We will show how the phenomenon of ab-reaction is approached in Psychoanalysis and Psychology, and how this concept helps us understand minds and behavior.

According to Laplanche & Pontalis ("Vocabulary of Psychoanalysis"), ab-reaction is the "emotional discharge by which a subject is released from the affect attached to the memory of a traumatic event "This would allow this affect (energy linked to memory traces) not to continue in the pathogenic condition. That is to say, by ab-reacting, the subject becomes aware of the origin of his symptom and gives it an emotional response, in the sense of interrupting it.

Ab-reaction as the mission of therapy

In the early phase of Freud's work (with Breuer), ab-reaction was achieved especially under hypnosis or hypnotic state. cathartic method This moment could also arise spontaneously. At this time, Freud emphasized the importance of trauma: ab-reaction takes up the initial psychic trauma in order to overcome it.

For Freud, if this reaction is repressed (unterdrückt), the affect will remain attached to the memory, generating symptoms. Laplanche & Pontalis understand that ab-reaction would be the normal path that would allow the subject to react to a potentially traumatic event, thus avoiding that this event retains a quantum of affect that is too important to continue generating psychic pain. InHowever, it would be important that this reaction be "adequate" so that it could provoke a cathartic effect.

Simplifying the meaning of ab-reaction

To put it simply, ab-reaction is when the analyzer's "mind is made up" and he assimilates that a certain symptom or nuisance is linked to a motivation that, until then, remained unconscious and that has come to consciousness. And, on this, he reacts with a significantly strong psychic energy to interrupt the previous pathogenic effects.

This ab-reaction could be:

• spontaneous : without clinical intervention, but rather immediately following the traumatic event with such a short interval, so as to prevent its recollection from being charged with an affection too important to become pathogenic; or
• secondary This is caused by psychotherapy of a cathartic nature, which would allow the patient to recall and make tangible by word the traumatic event; in doing so, the patient would free himself of the amount of repressed affect that made this event pathogenic.

Freud realizes already in 1895: "It is in language that man finds a substitute for the act, a substitute thanks to which the affection can be abused in almost the same way.Freud's work, with the free association method.

Cathartic ab-reaction versus free association perlaboration

As we have seen, in his early phase, Freud understood that ab-reaction

• was through the patient's emotional response (catharsis)
• as a way to break the bond (affection) with an unconscious motive that generates symptoms.

Later, psychoanalysis came to understand that a similar result could occur either by ab-reaction, or by a continuous and gradual process (session after session) of therapy.

Freud's later method (free association) understands that the memory can also be integrated into the subject's consciousness by means of an associative series of ideas, which allows the understanding, assimilation, and correction of the event.

For Laplanche & Pontalis, "to emphasize exclusively ab-reaction in the efficacy of psychotherapy is first and foremost a characteristic of the so-called cathartic method period."

In any case, it is important to remember that, even if the cathartic (emotional) aspect is no longer central to Freudian psychoanalysis, psychoanalysis will continue to understand that ab-reaction (or something similar to it) in a way occurs with the various insights that the patient has during therapy, by the method of free association.

What prevents the patient from ab-responding?

Breuer and Freud (in "Studies on Hysteria") try to highlight three distinct situations that prevent the patient from ab-responding:

• Because of the psychic state it finds in the subject: dread, self-hypnosis, hypnoid state. This reason is related to hypnoid hysteria.
• Because of mainly social circumstances, which force the subject to withhold his reactions, this reason is linked to retention hysteria.
• Because of the repression or repressing: because it is less painful to the subject to repress out of his conscious thought. This reason is associated with defense hysteria.

Soon after the publication of Studies on Hysteria (Breuer and Freud), Freud kept only the last form (repression/recall).

Surrounded by social rules

Life in society imposes standards, definitions of right and wrong, thus creating a model to be followed by its members. In order to fit into the rules and guidelines, the human being finds himself increasingly hostage of this social framework. This occurs to the detriment of individual psychic characteristics. Then, there is an unbridled search for:

• individual earnings
• material profits beyond measure
• success
• trying to achieve success at all costs

These processes occur even if there is a gradual loss of morale and values .

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A response to apparent normality

Given this picture, the human psyche becomes a fertile ground for stereotyped mutations. They adapt to this social reality, creating mechanisms to regulate or even block instinctive impulses That is, as a form of safeguarding an apparent normality.

Freud divides the functioning of the human mind into three interacting psychic instances within the Structural Model. Thus defined, the ID is a psychic structure primitive and instinctive It is he who seeks to ensure from birth that basic needs are met for survival.

O EGO in turn, is the way in which the mind holds the impulses and desires of the ID "under control." Consequently, a mechanism for maintaining mental sanity.

Finally, closing the stages, the SUPEREGO It acts as a moderator of the ego. It provides the individual with insight into what is morally acceptable and what is not.

As such, it will always be grounded in the experiences lived throughout life.

Ab-reaction as a defense of the psyche

Throughout life, the individual goes through a series of situations in which his instincts are pitted against the ethical and moral issues of the Supgo. The Ego has the difficult task of counterbalancing these extremes, blocking traumatic occurrences. The Ego uses defence mechanisms It can be:

• denial,
• displacement,
• sublimation or
• any other artifice that the mind is capable of creating in the search for a constant balance.

Every action generates, necessarily, a reaction. But, as said before, some of these reactions, or even impulses originating in the human being are suppressed by the Ego. This occurs according to its judgment. Thus, these suppressions throughout life weaken the "veil" that hides them and generate a ab-reaction .

The ab-reaction and outflow of feelings caused by traumatic events

Because it is something that is not in the conscious, being some traumatic event that occurred early in childhood, the release of the pain caused occurs in a psychosomatics .

Psychosomatization is the way in which ego-blocked pain manages to "tear the veil" that keeps it hidden from the conscious. It then frustrates your control over your emotions, which ends up triggering limitations in functional activities.

These limitations can be motor, respiratory, emotional, or even the occurrence of several of these symptoms. emotions dammed up over the years .

Traumatic events and somatizations

The amplitude of the effects transcends the event that occurred. For example, a child that was physically assaulted by his caretakers and had this traumatic event regulated by the ego, will not necessarily somatize it in adulthood. In other words, being an aggressive father.

Somatizations can occur from an adult having difficulty speaking in public, relating to women, or having body aches? "distress call" so that the pain, previously inaccessible to the conscious, can be healed.

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The most common way to treat an ab-reaction, is to medicate the patient. It is necessary to reinforce the ego's power of control over such emotions. Consequently, the return to a "normal" life.

The best treatment for an ab-reaction

This type of treatment, however, in most cases rebuilds the barrier that was keeping the pain contained. But there may be a new future weakening Thus, a defense mechanism called conversion arises.

Through Psychoanalysis, on the other hand, the search is based on finding the contained feeling and throwing it out. Thus, an event that at the time was not able to be understood would be accepted by the conscious as something that caused pain, but that no longer represents a threat, ceasing to be a "hostage" of the ego and becoming part of the conscious as a memory of the past.

Reliving the past

Ab-reaction is the name given to emotional discharge that leads the individual to relive the feelings of the past event It goes far beyond the memory of the event or the tears that come from this memory. In this case, there is an emotional release so intense that it is capable of making the individual see himself exactly at the moment of the trauma.

In other words, this emotional discharge brings up all the bad feelings about a certain fact. And, if the individual is in a psychic state in which a better understanding is possible, catharsis will occur. Catharsis is nothing more than the way in which the trauma is definitively purged.

Conclusion on ab-reaction

Finally, it is important to note the two most common ways to achieve ab-reaction .

The first is a spontaneous event in which the mind by itself carries out the process.

In the second, the practitioner directs the patient to a mental state by making him regress within himself and makes him find the key point.

Thus, it is not the professional who brings him to the point, but only gives him tools to walk his own path and achieve catharsis, which held him back.

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