Acathexis

Acathexis is a psychoanalytic term for a lack of emotional response to significant memories or actual interactions, where such a response would normally be expected.^[1]

The term also refers more broadly to a general absence of normal or expected feelings.^[2]

Acathexis has been linked to anxiety, bipolar disorder and dementia,^[3] while the phenomenon also appears in posttraumatic stress disorder.^[4]

See also

• Alexithymia
• Anhedonia
• Anticathexis
• Body cathexis
• Cathexis
• Decathexis
• Flattened affect