cathexis

The joys of psychoanalytic language! Ick.

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.

Any particular writing's of Wilber's that you can cite on that subject?

Ken Wilber has some ideas on the mis-translation of Freud's writings as well.

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.

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)

Interesting to contemplate the possible (?) connection to catharsis. Investment of emotional energy v. release of same.