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[[Freud ]] employed the term "hypercathexis" to designate an additional charge of [[instinctual ]] [[energy ]] cathecting any already cathected [[psychical ]] element. The [[word]]'s primary application was in the description of the [[economy ]] of [[consciousness]], but it also served in connection with the regulation of the flow of [[psychic ]] energy and the [[constitution ]] of the [[preconscious ]] realm.

The term was first used by Freud in the "[[Project ]] for a [[Scientific ]] [[Psychology]]" (1950c [1895]), where it referred to a mobile [[cathexis ]] of the ego specific to consciousness, necessary to the [[mechanism ]] of attention, and consisting in a supplementary cathexis of neurones already cathected by [[perception]]. In Freud's account consciousness affected indications of quality. It arose from the [[excitation]], during perception, of [[particular ]] neurones belonging to the [[system ]] W. Attention first addressed the indications of quality transmitted by these already cathected neurones, and then, via a facilitated pathway, focused on the perceptions themselves, which were thus hypercathected. "By this means [the ego] is led to [[cathect ]] precisely the [[right ]] perceptions or their [[environment]]" (p. 362). The ego was hence able to distinguish [[cathexes ]] of [[real ]] perceptions from cathexes of wishes, and the [[reality ]] [[principle ]] could be established.

According to Freud, the regulation of cathexes within the psychical [[apparatus ]] remained [[unconscious]], and was effected automatically in accordance with the [[pleasure]]/unpleasure principle. In The [[Interpretation ]] of [[Dreams ]] (1900a), he pointed out that this initial mechanism was fine-tuned by virtue of a cathexis of attention, described as a "hypercathexis set up . . . by the regulating influence of the [[sense ]] [[organ ]] of the Cs." (p. 617), which at [[times ]] could even [[work ]] counter to the primary mechanism by cathecting elements that were a source of [[unpleasure ]] and that would otherwise succumb to [[repression]].

In "The Unconscious" (1915e), Freud attributed the emergence of the preconscious to a hypercathexis of [[word-presentations ]] by [[thing]]-presentations: "It is these hypercathexes, we may suppose, that bring [[about ]] a higher psychical organization and make it possible for the primary [[process ]] to be succeeded by the [[secondary process ]] which is dominant in the Pcs. . . . A presentation which is not put into [[words]], or a psychical act which is not hypercathected, remains thereafter in the [[Ucs. ]] in a [[state ]] of repression" (p. 202).

In considering the question of traumas, in Beyond the [[Pleasure Principle ]] (1920g), Freud described the anti-[[traumatic ]] regulatory function of hypercathectic energy, in the operation of the protective shield against stimuli, as the last line of [[defense ]] in the attempt to [[bind ]] the [[sum of excitation]]: "In the [[case ]] of quite a [[number ]] of traumas, the [[difference ]] between systems that are unprepared and systems that are well prepared through [[being ]] hypercathected may be a decisive factor in determining the outcome" (pp. 31-32).

See also: ; Attention; [[Castration ]] [[complex]]; Cathexis; [[Conscious ]] [[processes]]; Consciousness; [[Disavowal]]; [[Facilitation]]; [[Idealization]]; [[Narcissistic ]] defenses; Protective shield; Unconscious, the; [[Word-presentation]].[[Bibliography]]