This article proposes that the use of nondirectivity – understood as the therapist not directing the client's experiencing – facilitates therapeutic catharsis. The concept of therapeutic catharsis is a reconceptualization of how catharsis has been traditionally understood, and it is regarded as the most effective treatment for the most typical problems that are presented for therapy. Such problems are posited as having an interpersonal origin, and the unresolved aspects of which exist as an imprint in the brain. This healing process operates most effectively when the residual effects of such events are activated in an unforced or unprompted way; i.e. as a spontaneous manifestation that coexists with the support the client receives for his experiencing. The use of nondirectivity in itself is inherently supportive of the client's experiencing and promotes unforced activation. Rogers was a strong advocate of nondirectivity throughout his career and of the therapeutic value of catharsis in his earlier years, although he never formulated a conceptualization of either one. These formulations of problem causation and resolution integrate nondirectivity and catharsis into a unified conceptualization of psychotherapy.