#cathexis

[spockvarietyhour]

An Emergency Command Hologram if you will...."Cathexis"

[cathexis-art]

New Year, New Art.

[amalgam000]

Touching Bedside Manners 🥰

When it comes to Chakotay, Janeway has always had a very touching bedside manner...

And years later, Chakotay finally allows himself to touch her, too.

I hope you enjoy! ❤️

It's been a while since I made a Cartoon Voyager, I hope this one makes up for it 😁

[arachniasbride]

@voyagerweek - DAY 6: Favorite Holodeck Program ⤷ Janeway Lambda One + Lucille Davenport costume appreciation/study x

"...But when a tragic mystery begins to unravel, Lucille must decide: will she flee the darkness that threatens to consume her, or will she surrender to the haunting allure of Lord Burleigh and the secrets he keeps?"

[mademoisellemort]

"Things We Deny We Already Know" by Leia K. Bradley in Cathexis Northwest Press' Spring/Summer 2025 issue

[captainjanewayandtheunicorndog]

The Ultimate Star Trek Voyager Tournament

Wildcard Tournament 1 - Round 1 - Match 11

Infinite Regress (S5E7) vs Nightingale (S7E8) vs Sacred Ground (S3E7) vs Persistence of Vision (S2E8) vs Phage (S1E4) vs Cathexis (S1E12) vs Memorial (S6E14) vs The Fight (S5E18) vs Homestead (S7E22) vs Real Life (S3E22)

Which episode should be back in the tournament?

Infinite Regress

Nightingale

Sacred Ground

Persistence of Vision

Phage

Cathexis

Memorial

The Fight

Homestead

Real Life

Voting ended onMar 14

To see an overview of the tournament, click here.

[starlitbeetle]

"Love and Abuse Cannot Coexist": bell hooks on defining love

Imagine how much easier it would be for us to learn how to love if we began with a shared definition. The word "love" is most often defined as a noun, yet all the more astute theorists of love acknowledge that we would all love better if we used it as a verb. I spent years searching for a meaningful definition of the word "love," and was deeply relieved when I found one in psychiatrist M. Scott Peck's classic self-help book The Road Less Traveled, first published in 1978. Echoing the work of Erich Fromm, he defines love as "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." Explaining further, he continues: "Love is as love does. Love is an act of will--namely both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love." Since the choice must be made to nurture growth, this definition counters the more widely accepted assumption that we love instinctually. [...] Most of us learn early on to think of love as a feeling. When we feel deeply drawn to someone, we cathect with them; that is, we invest feelings or emotion in them. That process of investment wherein a loved one becomes important to us is called "cathexis." In his book Peck rightly emphasizes that most of us "confuse cathecting with loving." We all know how often individuals feeling connected to someone through the process of cathecting insist that they love the other person even if they are hurting or neglecting them. Since their feeling is that of cathexis, they insist that what they feel is love. When we understand love as the will to nurture our own and another's spiritual growth, it becomes clear that we cannot claim to love if we are hurtful and abusive. Love and abuse cannot coexist. Abuse and neglect are, by definition, the opposites of nurturance and care. [...] An overwhelming majority of us come from dysfunctional families in which we were taught we were not okay, where we were shamed, verbally and/or physically abused, and emotionally neglected even as were also taught to believe that we were loved. For most folks it is just too threatening to embrace a definition of love that would no longer enable us to see love as present in our families. Too many of us need to cling to a notion of love that either makes abuse acceptable or at least make it seem that whatever happened was not that bad. [...] Most of us find it difficult to accept a definition of love that says we were never loved in a context where there is abuse. Most psychologically and/or physically abused children have been taught by parenting adults that love can coexist with abuse. And in extreme cases that abuse is an expression of love. This faulty thinking often shapes our adult perceptions of love. So that just as we would cling to the notion that those who hurt us as children loved us, we try to rationalize being hurt by other adults by insisting that they love us. [...] To begin by always thinking of love as an action rather than a feeling is one way in which anyone using the word in this manner automatically assumes accountability and responsibility. [...]

Some folks have difficulty with Peck's definition of love because he uses the word "spiritual." He is referring to that dimension of our core reality where mind, body, and spirit are one. An individual does not need to be a believer in a religion to embrace the idea that there is an animating principle in the self--a life force (some of us call it soul) that when nurtured enhances our capacity to be more fully self-actualized and able to engage in communion with the world around us. [...] Undoubtedly, many of us are more comfortable with the notion that love can mean anything to anybody precisely because when we define it with precision and clarity it bring us face to face with our lacks--with terrible alienation. The truth is, far too many people in our culture do not know what love is. And this not knowing feels like a terrible secret, a lack that we have to cover up. [...] When we intervene on mystifying assumptions that love cannot be defined by offering workable, useful defintiions, we are already creating a context where love can begin to flourish. [...] Definitions are vital starting points for the imagination. What we cannot imagine cannot come into being.

--bell hooks, All About Love (1999)

[angrywarrior69]

Tomorrow is my birthday and you know what that means

POST

CATHEXIS

Hair!!!!!!