Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Concentration of emotional energy on an object or idea.
Wiktionary
- n. the concentration of libido or emotional energy on a single object or idea
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. the process of investing mental, emotional, or libidinal energy or significance in an object, person, or idea.
- n. the emotional or libidinal energy invested in an object, person, or idea.
WordNet 3.0
- n. (psychoanalysis) the libidinal energy invested in some idea or person or object
Etymologies
- Greek kathexis, holding, retention, from katekhein, to hold fast : kat-, kata-, intensive pref.; see cata- + ekhein, to hold; see segh- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“A cathexis is conceived to be analogous to an electric charge which can shift from one structure except in so far as it becomes bound – or to troops which can be deployed from one position to another.”
“I believe the first time and until today the last time I saw the word "cathexis," it was in a piece by Norman Mailer.”
“It's the same mentality that chose to render Freud's Besetzung by "cathexis," Fehlleistung by "parapraxis," and Ich by "ego.”
“Generally speaking, it is only those of us, such as creative scientists and Classical poets, who are in an active, efficiently productive quality of practical intellectual relationship with the principles adopted by deceased important thinkers of the past, who find in that fully efficient, if immortal quality of efficient social relationship in the form of a dialogue with minds from the past, the effect of what we sense as "cathexis" with those relevant minds living in the past.”
“A parenthetical remark from Craig Keller: "One barely cognates Lubitschian mise-en-scène; apprehension happens faster than you can incant 'cathexis-anti-cathexsis!!!”
“It is the cathexis that makes love both exquisite and painful but it is the "will to nurture one's own and another's spiritual growth" that makes it endure.”
“There was a ton of cathexis going on in that relationship.”
“According to Peck, love is "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." hooks goes on to discuss the importance of not confusing affection and/or cathexis investment of feeling and emotion in another with love.”
“I wrote cathexis, but it should have be catharsis, for the theatrical context.”
“But this collective cathexis that created Obamamania is obviously a deep desire for authenticity, and he is the natural repository of our hidden hopes.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cathexis’.
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Words
phantasmagoria, eviscerate, avast, simulacrum, varicose, oblique, gestalt, ersatz, vernal, vivace, stellate, synecdoche and 314 more...
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vocabulous
autarkic, ineluctable, productivist, teleology, imperious, Balkanization, phytosanitary, inedia, algesia, protean, tenebrous, libretto and 10 more...
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Lingering Irritation
Intensely disliked words from (a) grad program(s) in social sciences. At first they sound tricky and important. Take note! "Modeling is an important aspect in education. Eschew obfuscation."
...zeitgeist, praxis, cathexis, dissertation, reflexive, reflective, empathetic, empathic, paucity, diversity, intervention, efficacy and 23 more...
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Literary critical terms
cathexis, catachresis, polyvocal, alterity, liminality, liminal, limn, erasure, metonymic, intertextual, intrapoetic, contradistinction and 66 more...
smeggo Ich bin ein sexworker. Oct 10, 2008
vermontster The joys of psychoanalytic language! Ick. Jun 28, 2008
oroboros Slumry: check the paragraph titled "Will The Real Freud Please Stand Up" in "Integral Spirituality" p. 122-3. Undoubtedly there would be more in "Integral Psychology" which I haven't read. Aug 10, 2007
slumry Any particular writing's of Wilber's that you can cite on that subject? Aug 9, 2007
oroboros Ken Wilber has some ideas on the mis-translation of Freud's writings as well. Aug 9, 2007
slumry That is interesting. As I recall, one of Freud's translators more or less coined this word as a translation of a German word that means someting like "to occupy" If a person cathects something, he or she invests emotional energy in it and makes it his own. Bruno Bettelheim wrote a book about what he regarded as the mis-translation of Freud's writing. Aug 9, 2007
reesetee That is interesting--hadn't considered that. Here's what I found on etymologies:
catharsis: Greek kátharsis, a cleansing, equiv. to kathar- (var. s. of kathaírein to cleanse, deriv. of katharós pure)
cathexis: Greek káthexis, a keeping, equiv. to kathek- (var. s. of katéchein to keep, hold on to, equiv. to cat cat- + échein to have, hold) Aug 9, 2007
oroboros Interesting to contemplate the possible (?) connection to catharsis. Investment of emotional energy v. release of same. Aug 9, 2007