Catharsis and Change

There’s something both satisfying and unsettling about the act of unpacking. The way a suitcase opens to reveal the chaos inside, the wrinkled clothes, the tangled cords, the small, forgotten items that somehow ended up in the bottom corner. You sit there, pulling things out one by one, deciding where they go, deciding what to keep and what to discard. It’s a process of sorting, of making sense of the mess, of transforming disorder into order. But unpacking isn’t just about the physical act of emptying a bag or box. It’s about what we carry with us, both mentally and emotionally, and what it means to unearth those things, to bring them to light.

  When you move into a new space, the unpacking is almost ritualistic—a way to claim the new environment as your own, to say, “This is where I belong now.” Each item you place on a shelf, each piece of clothing you hang in a closet, is a step toward creating a new sense of home, a new identity in a new place. But with every item you unpack, you’re also confronting the remnants of who you were, the life you lived before this move, the person you were when you packed those things. It’s a process that’s both cathartic and disorienting, a reminder of the impermanence of everything we hold onto.

  In the psychodynamic realm, unpacking takes on a deeper, more complex meaning. It’s about the layers we accumulate over time—the defenses, the memories, the traumas we’ve wrapped ourselves in to protect the most vulnerable parts of our psyche. Freud, with his meticulous exploration of the unconscious, might have seen unpacking as a form of analysis, a way to peel back those layers, to expose the hidden desires and fears that shape our behavior. Jung, with his focus on the archetypal and the collective unconscious, might see it as a journey of individuation, a way to understand the symbols and patterns that repeat in our lives, guiding us toward a more integrated self.

  But it’s Lacan who might have the most interesting take on unpacking, with his concept of the Real, the Symbolic, and the Imaginary. For Lacan, the process of unpacking could be seen as an attempt to bridge the gap between the Symbolic order—the world of language, culture, and societal norms—and the Real, that which cannot be fully symbolized or articulated. To unpack, in a Lacanian sense, might mean confronting the things we’ve repressed, the parts of our experience that don’t fit neatly into the narratives we’ve constructed about ourselves. It’s a process that’s never truly complete, because there’s always something more to unpack, something more to discover beneath the surface.

  Unpacking, then, becomes a metaphor for the therapeutic process itself. When a client comes to therapy, they bring with them a suitcase full of experiences, emotions, and defenses. The therapist’s role is to help them unpack that suitcase, to sort through the contents, to decide what needs to be kept, what needs to be understood, and what needs to be let go. It’s a delicate, sometimes painful process, but it’s also necessary for healing. Because to unpack is to make space—to create room for new experiences, new growth, new understanding.

  But what happens when you find yourself unpacking something that was empty to begin with? When you realize that what you’ve been carrying all this time isn’t something tangible but rather a void, an absence, a space where something should have been but wasn’t? This is where unpacking becomes a confrontation with emptiness, with the things we’ve tried to fill that emptiness with—whether it’s relationships, work, or distractions. It’s a recognition that sometimes, the most important thing we unpack is the realization that we’ve been carrying around something that isn’t there, that never was.

  This realization can lead to catharsis, that emotional release that comes from finally letting go of something we’ve held onto for too long. In a psychological sense, catharsis is about unblocking the flow of emotions, allowing them to surface, to be expressed, to be released. Freud saw it as a necessary part of the therapeutic process, a way to purge the psyche of repressed emotions. Jung, too, recognized the importance of catharsis, particularly in the process of integrating the shadow—the parts of ourselves we deny or reject. To unpack, then, is to engage in a form of catharsis, to confront the emptiness we’ve been carrying, to allow ourselves to feel what we’ve been avoiding, and to find release in that confrontation.

  So, what do we take away from all this? That unpacking, whether it’s physical, emotional, or psychological, is a necessary part of growth. It’s about making space, about confronting what we carry with us, about deciding what to keep and what to let go. But it’s also about recognizing that sometimes, what we’re unpacking isn’t just the things we’ve accumulated but the empty spaces between them. And maybe, just maybe, those empty spaces are where the real work begins—the work of understanding ourselves, of healing, of becoming whole. Because in the end, to unpack is to make room for something new, something that was always there, waiting to be discovered.

Esther Son
Pyschotherapist