Collectible Investments for the High Net Worth Investor

Chapter The Neuropsychology of the Collector

Introduction

In a magazine article written years ago, the author suggested that collectors are individuals who sublimate their libidos by acquiring objects. The author based this concept on Sigmund Freud's essays in which he described collecting as a “redirection of surplus libido onto an inanimate object” (Ehrenfeld, 1993). Though Freud's theory sounds intriguing, even titillating, it probably has little if anything to do with the real reason that collectors collect. Though earlier theories, like Freud's, conjecture that there are multiple psychological motivations that cause people to seek out and gather almost everything imaginable, the search is rooted in our very neurobiology. This is where the ...