The Seba library treats Vomit in 9 passages, across 6 authors (including Richard Sorabji, Trungpa, Chögyam, Jung, Carl Gustav).
some people are allowed by God to indulge in pleasures until they reach satiety (koros) and vomit. This is said to be a kind of catharsis which heals them.
Sorabji presents the Neoplatonic (Simplicius/Olympiodorus) emetic model of catharsis: vomiting is the therapeutic endpoint of indulged desire, functioning as purgative healing of the soul.
, Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation, 2000thesis
We do not consider how we are going to vomit; we just vomit. There is no time to think about it; it just happens. If we are very tense, then we will have tremendous pain and will not really be able to vomit properly.
Trungpa uses vomiting as a precise analogy for the uncontrived, ego-surrendering quality required of genuine spiritual practice, contrasting relaxed release with the self-defeating resistance of trying to ‘swallow back’ illness.
, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, 1973thesis
Aversion will sicken him. He makes himself vomit. His bowels pain him and his brain sinks into lassitude. He would rather devise any trick to help him escape, since nothing matches the torment of one’s own way.
Jung renders the approach to individuation as a near-physical vomiting reflex—the psyche’s violent revulsion against the demand of living one’s own life—making vomit a somatic metaphor for the resistance to self-confrontation.
, The Red Book: Liber Novus, 2009thesis
Another form of negating sexual thoughts is that of psychogenic vomiting and disgust which, as Freud has found, mainly signifies sexual d
Bleuler, citing Freud, classifies psychogenic vomiting in schizophrenic patients as a symptomatic negation of sexual ideation, placing it within the broader economy of repression and disgust.
, Dementia Praecox or the Group of Schizophrenias, 1911thesis
they learn to vomit immediately what they have just swallowed, etc. Lastly comes on, sooner or later, but sometimes only after years, the third period, called period of inanition.
Janet clinically documents the learned vomiting behavior of anorexic hysterics as a strategic act marking the second period of the disorder, preceding the life-threatening stage of inanition.
, The Major Symptoms of Hysteria, 1907thesis
Hysterical vomiting — The vomiting of blood WE have to repeat in regard to respiration a study analogous to that which we devoted to the functions of alimentation
Janet’s lecture index confirms hysterical vomiting—including hematemesis—as a classified tic within his broader taxonomy of hysterical disturbances of alimentation and respiration.
, The Major Symptoms of Hysteria, 1907supporting
φλύω 2 [v.] ‘to vomit’. IE *bhleu- ‘vomit’ … Usually connected with OCS bljwati, ISg. bljujǫ ‘to vomit’
Beekes traces the Indo-European root *bhleu- ‘to vomit’ and its Slavic cognates, supplying the etymological substrate for vomit’s cross-cultural linguistic presence.
, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010supporting
ἐξ-ερᾶω ‘pour out, vomit’ (Hp.), ἐξέραμα ‘spittle, vomit’ (NT), ἐξέρασις ‘dye extract’
Beekes documents the Greek lexical field of vomiting through the verb ἐξ-ερᾶω and related nominals, showing its semantic overlap with concepts of pouring out and expulsion in classical medical and New Testament usage.
, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010supporting
we have to … connect with deliriums or with the disturbances of the functions of alimentation, which bring about the impulsion to drink indefinitely.
Janet situates polydipsia within the same functional cluster as vomiting, linking both to hysterical disturbances of the alimentary drive rather than to isolated organic causes.
, The Major Symptoms of Hysteria, 1907aside