Catharsis and computer games My thesis is that violent computer games afford one the benefit of catharsis.

Catharsis, as Aristotle contends about it, is a form of purgation or purification of negative emotions. There are four levels of catharsis, in terms of its purifying categories. There are no specific stages of the order of purgation, according to Aristotle. What matters for him is that catharsis involves a kind of cleansing that translates ones being into something that is having a pure or cleansed soul. These are emotional catharsis wherein one purges his negative emotions, a religious malady that needs spiritual purification, a moral purification from immoral experiences, and that of intellectual purification. In one way or another, these four levels were experienced by respondents in my study. They were able to see themselves as somebody who learned from their experiences in the real world after their entry into the virtual world, and back to the real world. Seeing themselves as somebody is a manifestation of Aristotles Becoming where the respondents where able to see their present state of helplessness in the face of different negative experiences. The computer game becomes a medium of learning of the real essence of the respondents as human beings. In fact one of the respondents said of knowing himself better after playing the game. This better can be surmised as a kind of intellectual, if not a spiritual enlightenment. Intellectual, in the sense of purging those barriers to know oneself as a thinking being. One learns to purge ignorant thoughts about ones capacity to know. Perhaps, the most important implication of feeling better among respondents is its association with a kind of spiritual enlightenment where the respondents become aware of their helplessness in the face of different maladies that they are encountering in the real world. These maladies brought the respondents to the truth of

their existence: affected by stress, problems, fears, pity and tears, among others. In other words, the respondents felt a kind of vulnerability to the emotions of the world that makes them run to the virtual world of computer games and used it as a platform of transcendence to be able to confront the real world. This transcendence helps respondents to recognize the meaning of friendship, cooperation, better person, confidentiality, truth that makes them respect others. These knowing of transcendental, in a way, made the respondents know themselves better, and in the process, are able to recognize who they are as a person, not only as a respondent endowed with intellect but also as a person who is aching for a certain unity with their inner selves.