Carol getting behind family, bringing in energy, offering catharsis (9)
I believe the answer is:
cleansing
'catharsis' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'carol getting behind family bringing in energy' is the wordplay.
'carol' becomes 'sing' (carol can mean to sing carols).
'getting' says to put letters next to each other.
'behind family' becomes 'clan' (I've seen this before. I am not sure about the 'behind' bit.).
'bringing in' is an insertion indicator.
'energy' becomes 'e' (physics symbol as in E=mcl).
'clan' enclosing 'e' is 'clean'.
'sing' after 'clean' is 'CLEANSING'.
'offering' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for cleansing that I've seen before include "Nice slang for making thoroughly free from dirt (9)" , "Purging" .)