Cathexis

[nemorathwald]

Recently in talking to someone about a troubling situation they had, I recalled a hypothesis I had once developed. I spent too much time late at night hunting for the file in which I had written it out, so I'll put it here for safekeeping.

"The Road Less Traveled" says that infatuation is sometimes referred to academically with the word "cathexis," which means a softening of boundaries between identities. An infant, for instance, is still developing concepts of itself and the world being independent things. In its mind, they are submerged in each other. This is complete cathexis. The interests of the object of cathexis are difficult to distinguish from one's own interests. This explains why people abuse those they are in love with more easily than strangers, and sacrifice more for them as well. Teenagers are prone to enter states of mild cathexis, which we call infatuation, more easily than adults because they are separating their self-image from their parents and have not yet formed a clear idea of who they want to be.

But adults reinvent themselves as well. For a story containing an example which I found plausible, see the short science fiction story "Fossil Games" by Tom Purdom.

I have an unproven anecdotal hypothesis that a person's view of someone transforms into an infatuation when they are going through an identity shift and the object of infatuation somehow represents the new identity they intend to build. (This can also explain why people sometimes join cults during radical life transitions or in a new environment.) Does this jive with your observations of yourself or those around you?

Comments

[matt-arnold.livejournal.com]

Affection, friendship, understanding, or wanting what's best for another person are not simplistic chemical reactions. They are also forms of "love" depending on how one defines it. My own philosophy (your mileage may vary) is that people change and relationships change with them, so these forms transition from one into another and that's the only way to keep a relationship going for decades. I was referring to cathexis specifically -- that is the most short-lived form of love. The feeling of one-ness makes it easier to treat another person as if they are one's own self. That's why the start of a new relationship so effortless compared to the effort of actually sustaining it. Unhealthy relationship expectations are based solely on the rose-colored glasses of a beautiful and precious chemical influence. It is all-encompassing of the springtime of the universe and everything in it from now unto eternity, and therefore simplistic. Healthy expectations, IMO, enjoy that rose-colored feeling but bear in mind the reality of change.