There is some debate as to when, how and even whether it is therapeutically useful to express emotions over past events.
On one end of the spectrum is the cathartic school of thought, which believes that experiencing the emotions of past events to their full extent allows us to truly move on from them. This is based on the idea that past events can continue to haunt us because they represent “unfinished business” – something at the time blocked us from feeling and expressing our emotions fully. Releasing the pent-up or repressed feelings at a later date will clear them and bring closure to the episode.
At the other end is the “reinforcement” model. This theory holds that when we re-experience the emotions associated with a past event we can actually make the link between the feelings and the event stronger. It believes that we can “condition” ourselves to feel bad every time a certain memory comes up, and react in a particular way over and over again because we’ve come to expect it.
These two schools of thought predict quite different results for expressing emotions over past events. The cathartic model predicts that having a good cry over the break-up of an old relationship means you will feel more relaxed and detached if you think about it again. By contrast, the reinforcement model predicts that having a good cry will make you feel more vulnerable or tearful when the subject comes up again.
As with most psychological models, being dogmatic is often counterproductive. Different people will respond to different methods for different situations. There are people who find it beneficial to express emotions they’ve held back from in the past – if only to see that such feelings are survivable. There are also people who revisit the same emotions and recall the same memories each time the topic or something similar comes up.
For myself, I think that ‘new-versus-same’ is the best guide as to whether expressing emotions over past events is beneficial. If the emotions are new to you and different to what you’ve experienced before, then expressing them may be valuable. If they are the same ones you’ve felt before about this event or others like it, then revisiting it on a purely emotional level may have come to the end of its usefulness.
