cathectic

Borrowing from Ancient Greek καθεκτικός (kathektikós, “capable of retaining”)

• IPA^(key): /kəˈθɛktɪk/
• Rhymes: -ɛktɪk

cathectic (comparative more cathectic, superlative most cathectic)

1. Of or pertaining to a connection that is charged with emotional energy.
   • 1999, André Green, translated by Alan Sheridan, The Fabric of Affect in the Psychoanalytic Discourse, Psychology Press, page 14:

     What we are dealing with here is more cathectic energy than the quota of affect as such, but the second is included in the first, as the following quotation shows:

   • 2006, Stephen Spotte, Zoos in Postmodernism, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, page 143:

     Viewing animals inside an enclosure bounded by barriers agitates many people simply because the perspective seems wrong. This remnant of modernism is perhaps the most cathectic concern and source of the sometimes intense criticism of zoos.

   • 2010, Matthew Weinstein, Bodies Out of Control: Rethinking Science Texts, Peter Lang, page 25:

     Nowhere is this contestation between purity, pleasure, and danger more clearly expressed than in gnotobiology's most cathectic public image: the boy in the bubble.