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Cathexis

The concept of cathexis was introduced by Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939) and Joseph Breuer (1842 – 1925) in their 1895 book Studies on Hysteria (Breuer & Freud, 1895/1955).

Cathexis is used in psychoanalysis to describe the emotional charge associated with an instinct or the process of investing psychic energy (or drive) into a part of the body or an instinctual object.

The original German term Besetzung (occupation) was used by Freud; the term cathexis (from the Greek kathexis) was coined in 1922 by Freud’s translator James Strachey (Colman, 2001).

To cathectize an object would mean to invest emotional or psychic energy into the object. In psychoanalytic parlance, an object could be an idea, person, thing, fantasy, wish, social group, goal or the self (Corsini, 1999). For example, if an individual associates a great deal of symbolic or emotional significance to rainbows, seeing a rainbow might make that individual feel happy or hopeful, not seeing a rainbow might cause him to feel sad or unlucky, or he might have a desire to collect pictures or images of rainbows.

  • A release of psychic energy or affect (e.g., crying, going into a rage) is known as a cathectic discharge (or affective discharge).
  • Countercathexis (also known as anticathexis or counterinvestment) refers to the psychic energy or force used by the unconscious to repress impulses from the id; the emotional component of the impulse is shifted to its opposite (Marshall, 1998). For example, a person may conceal or attempt to neutralize the unconscious desire to hoard by making visible acts of charity (reaction formation).
  • Unconscious desires that are not neutralized can result in repression —an energy-intensive attempt to keep desires submerged in the unconscious—or sublimation—unconscious desires finding alternative outlets.

The id, one of Freud’s structural categories of the psyche, encompasses the infant’s most primitive urges for gratification and is dominated by the desire for pleasure through release of tension (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008).

  • Acathexis (or acathexia) is a flatness of emotions or lack of feelings associated with typically emotionally charged ideas.
  • Hypercathexis refers to an overabundance of psychic energy invested in an object, while
  • hypocathexis describes an abnormally low investment of energy.

The model of energy incorporated into Eric Berne’s (1957) framework for transactional analysis (TA; an integrative psychotherapeutic approach incorporating elements of psychoanalytic, cognitive, and humanistic psychology) was labeled cathexis and comprised three states:

  1. free,
  2. bound, and
  3. unbound cathexis (Tudor, 2002).
  • Free cathexis describes a state of conscious willful control.
  • Unbound cathexis describes thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are anathema to an individual but occur despite attempts to control them.
  • Bound cathexis is the part of the self that is unavailable or inaccessible—similar to the psychoanalytic concept of repression.

In The Road Less Travelled (1978), M. Scott Peck differentiated between love, which is an activity and an investment, and cathexis, which is a feeling. Cathexis includes romantic attraction and the instinct to cuddle pets, while love is the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing another’s (or one’s own) spiritual growth. Once through the cathexis stage, the work of love can begin.

See also:
  1. Berne, E. (1957). Intuition: V. The ego image. Psychiatric Quarterly, 31, 611 – 627.
  2. Breuer, J., & Freud, S. (1955). Studies on hysteria. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 2). London: Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1895).
  3. Colman, A.M. (2001). Oxford dictionary of psychology, New York: Oxford University Press.
  4. Corsini, R.J. (1999). The dictionary of psychology. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press.
  5. Marshall, G. (1998). A dictionary of sociology. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
  6. Peck, M.D. (1978). The road less travelled. New York: Touchstone.
  7. Tudor, K. (2002). Transactional analysis approaches to brief therapy, or, What do you say between saying hello and goodbye? London: Sage.
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