"empathy", cathexis, narcissistic, infantile consumerism

The Empathy Issue
By DAVID BROOKS
The crucial question in evaluating Sonia Sotomayor as a Supreme Court justice is not whether, but how, she relies on empathy or emotion in rendering decisions.
Taiwan’s Hello Kitty craze is about more than infantile consumerism. By embracing Japan's cuteness culture, Taiwanese can distance themselves from China

Obama will personally lead the search for a nominee, and his background as a constitutional law professor and community organizer is a likely influence behind his desire to appoint someone who will show "empathy" towards "people's hopes and struggles," as he said in yesterday's press briefing.




In Freud's "narcissistic neuroses," among them homosexuality, megalomania, and schizophrenia, the individual is unable to move beyond the libidinal self-absorption of infancy. This prevents the healthy cathexis of the ego-libido to the object-libido and manifests as psychotic neuroses, for example schizophrenia, and autoerotic love in the homosexual. Among others who have expanded on Freud's pathological theory of narcissism, Alcorn addresses the narcissistic absorption that normal individuals experience in the creative process, a point that is explored by the psychoanalyst, Heinz Kohut.

infantile 

Pronunciation: /ˈɪnf(ə)ntʌɪl/ 

ADJECTIVE

1Of or occurring among babies or very young children:infantile colic

More example sentences

1.1derogatory Childish:infantile jokes

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Derivatives

infantility

Pronunciation: /ɪnf(ə)nˈtɪlɪti/ 

NOUN (plural infantilities)

Example sentences

Origin

Late Middle English: from French, or from Latin infantilis, from infans, infant- (see infant).

empathy
noun [U]
the ability to share someone else's feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in their situation
Compare sympathy (UNDERSTANDING).

empathetic
adjective

empathize, UK USUALLY empathise
verb [I]
to be able to understand how someone else feels:
It's very easy to empathize with the characters in her books.
Compare sympathize at sympathy (UNDERSTANDING).

ca·thex·is (kə-thĕk'sĭs)

n., pl. -thex·es (-thĕk'sēz).
Concentration of emotional energy on an object or idea.

[Greek kathexis, holding, retention, from katekhein, to hold fast : kat-, kata-, intensive pref.; see cata– + ekhein, to hold.]

narcissistic
1. Excessive love or admiration of oneself. See synonyms at conceit.
2. A psychological condition characterized by self-preoccupation, lack of empathy, and unconscious deficits in self-esteem.
3. Erotic pleasure derived from contemplation or admiration of one's own body or self, especially as a fixation on or a regression to an infantile stage of development.
4. The attribute of the human psyche charactized by admiration of oneself but within normal limits.