psychic energy

American  

noun

Psychoanalysis.

1. according to Freud, the force that lies behind all mental processes, having its basic source as the id.

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Etymology

Origin of psychic energy

First recorded in 1920–25

Example Sentences

We’ll have robot cars, robocops, terminators and a fully functioning Skynet that grades social status from Instagram likes—unless we’re all entombed Matrix-like in pods wearing Neurolinks to capture our psychic energy.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 22, 2026

Rather, it’s that I’ve decided that this time around, I will not exert my own psychic energy toward wondering what is bothering him and mistaking that for anything meaningful.

From Slate • Feb. 9, 2025

Army’s attempts to harness psychic energy to kill the animals by glaring intently at them.

From Science Magazine • Dec. 7, 2023

I think she found a lot of energy in Roethke’s organic psychic energy.

From The New Yorker • Mar. 20, 2019

The explanation is as follows: I possess, let us say, 100 units of psychic energy which I might use in attention.

From Criminal Psychology; a manual for judges, practitioners, and students by Gross, Hans Gustav Adolf