ABSTRACT
Cathexis is a key psychoanalytic term that describes the psyche’s investment of energy into objects. Where is that energy coming from, and how it is related to objects? Recent results show that the brain exhibits global dynamic, with very powerful slow-frequency fluctuations extending across subcortical and cortical regions. These fluctuations are manifest in different degrees in different cortical regions/networks, entailing a global topography. Conjointly, global dynamic and topography account for the investment of energy (as related to the dynamic) into objects (as processed in the regions’ topography). We, in a second step, assume that the brain’s global dynamic and topography converge with what is described as “deep temporal models” in the context of the free energy principle by K. Friston that recently has been related to cathexis. We consequently assume that global brain dynamic and topography provide a “deep temporal and spatial model” that allows the brain to minimize its free energy in its contact with the environmental context. In conclusion, we propose that global dynamic and topography provide the brain’s energetic interface with the dynamic of its environment. The brain’s energy is thus invested into its own relation with the environment, thereby constituting the physiological basis of what is described as object relation on the psychological level.
