I don't want to punish him or have a national catharsis.

Its first performances were an act of purgation, a national catharsis.

His message was actually less about treaty provisions and tariff barriers than about national catharsis.

And, because Chinese media outlets remain tightly controlled, no such ceremonial moment of honest re-evaluation, much less national catharsis, seems likely any time soon.

To be able to point and laugh was quite simply a national catharsis.

What it may produce is a national catharsis about the sins of the past, a chance to forgive, if not to forget.

South Koreans have braced for a televised national catharsis, a chance to answer scores of unresolved questions about his rule.

"Their story has been a regional or even a national catharsis."

Today's revelation-- and others, perhaps yet to come - may pump new energy into what is already a national catharsis.

This is not a part of a national catharsis.