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In psychoanalysis, cathexis (or emotional investment) is defined as the process of allocation of mental energy to a person, object, or idea.Hall, Calvin S. A Primer of Freudian Psychology. New York: Mentor, 1954.
Peter Gay objected that Strachey's use of cathexis was an unnecessarily esoteric replacement for Freud's use of Besetzung – "a word from common German speech rich in suggestive meanings, among them 'occupation' (by troops) and 'charge' (of Electric charge)", though Gay is mistaken regarding his latter example.
Freud frequently described the functioning of psychosexual energies in quasi-physical terms, representing frustration of libidinal desires, for example, as a blockage of (cathected) energies which would eventually build up and require release in alternative ways. This release could occur, for example, by way of regression and the "re-cathecting" of former positions or fixations, or the autoeroticism enjoyment (in phantasy) of former sexual objects: "object-cathexes".
Freud used the term "anticathexis" or counter-chargeFelluga, Dino. "Terms Used by Psychoanalysis." Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. Purdue U. 31 August 2009. ( online) to describe how the ego blocks such regressive efforts to discharge one's cathexis: that is, when the ego wishes to repress such desires. Like a steam engine, the libido's cathexis then builds up until it finds alternative outlets, which can lead to sublimation, reaction formation, or the construction of (sometimes disabling) symptoms.
M. Scott Peck distinguishes between love and cathexis, with cathexis being the initial in-love phase of a relationship, and love being the ongoing commitment of care. Cathexis, to Peck, is distinguished from love by its dynamic element.
In delusions, it was the hypercathexis (or over-charging) of ideas previously dismissed as odd or eccentric which he saw as causing the subsequent pathology.Sigmund Freud, On Psychopathology (PFL 10) p. 203
Further ambiguity in Freud's usage emerges in the contrast between cathexis as a measurable load of (undifferentiated) libido, and as a qualitatively distinct type of affect – as in a "cathexis of longing".
Usage
Freud defined cathexis as an allocation of libido, pointing out for example how dream thoughts were charged with different amounts of affect. A cathexis or allocation of emotional charge might be positive or negative, leading some of his followers to speak of a cathexis of mortido as well.Eric Berne, A Layman's Guide to Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis (1976) p. 54 and p. 70 Freud called a group of cathected ideas a complex.Sigmund Freud, Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1995) p. 44
Object relations
Freud saw the early cathexis of objects with libidinal energy as a central aspect of human development. In describing the withdrawal of cathexes which accompanied the mourning process, Freud provided his major contribution to the foundation of object relations theory.Neville Symington, Narcissism: A New Theory (2003) p. x–xi
Thinking
Freud saw thinking as an experimental process involving minimal amounts of cathexis, "in the same way as a general shifts small figures about on a map".
Art
Eric Berne raised the possibility that child art often represented the intensity of cathexis invested in an object, rather than its objective form.
Criticism
Critics charge that the term provides a potentially misleading neurophysiological analogy, which might be applicable to the cathexis of ideas but certainly not of objects. This, however, arises from a misunderstanding of the psychoanalytic definition of objects, which does not refer to physical objects that are seen in the environment, but to the internal images of these physical objects which are created by the psyche.
See also
Explanatory notes
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