cathectic

adj

1. Of or pertaining to a connection that is charged with emotional energy.

   “What we are dealing with here is more cathectic energy than the quota of affect as such, but the second is included in the first, as the following quotation shows:”

   “Viewing animals inside an enclosure bounded by barriers agitates many people simply because the perspective seems wrong. This remnant of modernism is perhaps the most cathectic concern and source of the sometimes intense criticism of zoos.”

   “Nowhere is this contestation between purity, pleasure, and danger more clearly expressed than in gnotobiology's most cathectic public image: the boy in the bubble.”