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In psychoanalysis, cathexis (or emotional investment) is defined as the process of allocation of mental or emotional energy to a person, object, or idea. The Greek term cathexis (κάθεξις) was chosen by James Strachey to render the German term Besetzung in his translation of Sigmund Freud's complete works. Freud himself used the word "interest" in English in an early letter to Ernest Jones. 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 electricity)", though Gay is mistaken regarding his latter example. Gay may have been confused by the common use of the English word "charge" to refer to both "allocation/allocating" and the "energy" allocated in cathexis, e.g. "emotional charge", "counter-charge", "to charge with an affect". 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. Freud called a group of cathected ideas a complex. 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 autoerotic enjoyment (in phantasy) of former sexual objects: "object-cathexes". Freud used the term "anti-cathexis" or counter-charge 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.

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Related concepts (6)

Cathexis

Sublimation (psychology)

In psychology, sublimation is a mature type of defense mechanism, in which socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior, possibly resulting in a long-term conversion of the initial impulse. Sigmund Freud believed that sublimation was a sign of maturity and civilization, allowing people to function normally in culturally acceptable ways.

Decathexis

In psychoanalysis, decathexis is the withdrawal of cathexis from an idea or instinctual object. Decathexis is the process of dis-investment of mental or emotional energy in a person, object, or idea. In narcissistic neurosis, cathexis is withdrawn from external instinctual objects (or rather their unconscious representations) and turned on the ego – a process Freud highlighted in the Schreber case, and linked to the subject's ensuing megalomania. A similar decathexis of energy has been linked to the emergence of symptoms of hypochondriasis, as well as of melancholia.