# 50. Self-delusion - the manipulation of self ## 50.5. Methodology/Refinements/Sub-species ### 50.5.13. Cathartic venting The advent of modern psychology has brought some important advances in our understanding of our emotions and the nature of repressive behaviour. We have, for instance, come to believe that all forms of repressive behaviour are counter-productive. Included in this is the widely-held belief that anger should never be "bottled-up" and that such feelings can and should be healthily vented in the "usual" way. This might be the slamming of doors, storming out of a meeting, or whatever angry people do at a particular moment. Venting one's anger is generally considered to be an effective way to reduce stress and prevent lashing out at friends and family. This generally held view is, however, a delusion. In fact, venting anger in this way actually increases aggressive behaviour over time. There is a very simple reason for this: Catharsis will make you feel good, but it's an emotional "roundabout" and not an end in itself. The emotion which leads us to catharsis will still be there afterwards, and if it made you feel good, you will seek it out again in the future. So, in a sense, cathartic venting becomes a form of emotional addiction with some strongly negative effects. Anger tends to originate in some form of frustration. This frustration can either be channelled into corrective action or it can develop into anger. The anger can still be managed by calming down and rationalising the problem. This requires some effort and may give few immediate results in terms of the original problem. Alternatively, anger can be vented in a cathartic way. This will give an instant gratification but will do nothing at all about the original issue. Giving in to the use of cathartic venting in this way tends to make us become catharsis junkies, using this "vent" more and more frequently as an apparent "solution" to all frustrations. This is a destabilising and invariably destructive route. One of the risks of this particular delusion is that a manipulator can use this commonly accepted view of catharsis to encourage its public use by a victim. Over time, a victim's behaviour (under the tutelage of the manipulator), can be made to degenerate. It may reach the point where a victim becomes completely isolated from colleagues and friends who find the victim's tantrums intolerable. Groups of victims can be encouraged to vent their anger in this way, and it gets really serious when groups of angry, inarticulate, "venting" people hit the streets! The mechanism for the manipulator is simple: it is akin to making bullets for the victim to fire. The manipulator simply has to vent his anger, together with the victim in private, against some particular targets. Thus, a victim is encouraged to do the same thing whenever the case arises. All that is left is for the manipulator to ensure that the victim has plenty of opportunities for public anger. Once the addiction is established, the victim's behaviour becomes self-reinforcing and ultimately self-destructive. Extreme racist parties use cathartic outbursts of xenophobia and extreme anger to convert their political message into menacingly violent demonstrations.