Convention as Psychodrama

How to Achieve Catharsis in a Charged Environment

By Harry Shearer
8/28/08 10:40 AM

So the Democratic convention has been about catharsis.

We’ve been told that this was what Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, her husband, former President Bill Clinton and the Clinton delegates were seeking — what they came to the Mile High City to get. As if the Pepsi Center needed to be fitted out with more than a thousand analysts’ couches — in addition to Arianna Huffington’s meditation-and-yoga oasis just outside the hall.