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In the most general [[terms]], cathectic [[energy ]] is the energy attached to various [[psychic ]] [[formations]]. [[Freud ]] used this expression in two different contexts: one where it clearly designates a [[libidinal ]] [[cathexis]], and [[another ]] where by implication the energy in question is of a different nature—neutral or desexualized.

In this last, narrower [[sense]], cathectic energy appears in the [[letter ]] to Wilhelm [[Fliess ]] of January 1, 1896, as "free [[psychic energy]]," small quantities of energy bound to the phenomena of attention and [[consciousness]]. In The [[Interpretation ]] of [[Dreams ]] (1900a), cathectic energy is the energy invested in [[thoughts ]] by the [[preconscious ]] as opposed to the countervailing "energy of the [[unconscious]]": "[the primary [[processes]]] appear whenever [[ideas ]] are abandoned by the preconscious cathexis, are [[left ]] to themselves and can become charged with the uninhibited energy from the unconscious which is striving to find an outlet" (p. 605). Freud would continue throughout his career to maintain this [[distinction ]] between the energy whose displacements regulate the processes of [[thought ]] and fuel cathexis, on the one hand, and the countercathexes of the [[instinct ]] on the [[other]].

As for the origin of this energy, Freud wrote in The Ego and [[the Id ]] (1923b), for example, that he "reckoned as though there existed in the [[mind ]] ...a displaceable energy, which, neutral in itself, can be added to a qualitatively differentiated [[erotic ]] or destructive impulse, and augment its [[total ]] cathexis. ...It seems a plausible view that this displaceable and neutral energy . . . proceeds from the [[narcissistic ]] store of libido—that it is desexualized [[Eros]]" (p. 44). The adherents of ego [[psychology ]] have made this supposed neutral energy into the energy powering their "[[conflict]]-free ego."

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