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Holt discusses the changes in Freud's thinking which occurred over a period of time with regard to his ideas of bound and mobile energy. Freud used the concepts of binding and mobility of cathexes in about fourteen different ways. The major usages describe the inhibition and delay of discharge, the binding of drive energy to ideas (primary to secondary process), and the building of structure. Freud distinguishes between the energy of instinctual drives and neutral energy (hypercathexis). It is not clear whether this latter is derived from drive energy. Hypercathexis seems to be used mainly for structure formation.
The author makes a strong plea for differentiation between drive cathexis and hypercathexis. Where hypercathexis is bound, he proposes the use of the term 'immobilization'. He also distinguishes between 'binding' and 'neutralization' as used in the formation of secondary process to describe drive energy, the former referring to formal properties of thought, the latter to content. Hypercathexis may bind drive cathexis to an idea; it may focus attention on it; or it may through countercathexis inhibit its discharge or access to consciousness.