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Hello Ruby! I found this article in its current state to be lacking some references and then delving into less scientific topics (like sexual mysticism and sublimation in pop-culture). Obviously those aren't exactly things I'm going to find peer-reviewed journal articles about, so I tried to put my article together in a more empirical manner. For that reason, the only pre-existing material I build off of is in my opening blurb and under the "Origins" heading. After that, it's all newly written by me.

Sublimation (psychology)

For other uses, see Sublimation (disambiguation).

Freud's integral structure of the psyche.

In psychology, sublimation is a mature type of defence mechanism where socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are consciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behaviour, possibly converting the initial impulse in the long term. Freud believed that defence mechanisms were the way by which the ego defended itself against primal struggles. This was achieved by the act of displacement, which is the transfer of those unacceptable impulses into more admissible behaviors or activities. Specifically, according to Wade and Tavris, sublimation is when displacement "serves a higher cultural or socially useful purpose, as in the creation of art or inventions.".

As used by Freud, the word designated the concept of a spiritual redirection of the libido, and has roots in his psychoanalytical theory. Sublimation is an important aspect of psychoanalytic theory because it represents a striving point of human moral development. Sublimation therefore introduces an emotionally healthy procedure into psychoanalytic theory, giving patients the opportunity to correct immature desires and flourish as mature adults. By increasing acceptable pleasurable activities and practicing aspects of self-control, Freud theorized that through sublimation people had the potential to shed urges from more immature stages of development and become as rationally moral as he thought humans were capable of being.

Sublimation is a mature type of defense mechanism because it involves the conscious desire to change disagreeable urges into something positive, which is a method of self-improvement. These unacceptable impulses are the product of the libido, which is the primitive and pleasure-seeking structure of the psyche. Through sublimation, aggressive or sexual impulses may be used as fuel for more tolerable inclinations such as creating art, practicing religion, or a plethora of activities that are socially beneficial.

Origin

The first thinker to use the word in a psychological sense was the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. (Kaufmann, Nietzsche, chapter 7, section II) However, the creation of the term in regards to Freudian defense mechanism is less clear. Whilst reading The Harz Journey, by Heinrich Heine's, about Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach, Freud got the idea of sublimation. The story is about J. F. Dieffenbach who would cut off the tails of dogs that he found in his childhood and later became a surgeon. Freud concluded sublimation is if one does an action repeatedly throughout his life many times, but first starts doing it sadistically, he will end up doing a similar activity to the benefit of mankind. More recently this origin has begun to be disputed, as certain authors uncover personal correspondence Freud conducted with other professionals around the time his defense mechanisms became public. For instance, Capps points out that in Of Snips... and Puppy Dog Tails, Freud’s communication with Heinrich Heine was frequently full of playful banter, so that the creation of the term in this context may have been in jest. Regardless, the correspondence does reveal an opinion of Freud’s that can at times go ignored — Freud believed that even the moral defense mechanism of sublimation could be too much of a good thing.

Nevertheless, sublimation was one of the most important psychological concepts of its time and, despite its original genital focus, had many non-sexual implications. It was through this lens that Freud’s defense mechanisms began flooding academia. A 1926 review of how the scientific community was accepting Freudian theories revealed that in its infancy, sublimation was viewed as more of an unconscious process instead of the almost behavioral modifier it is seen as today. Though the Victorian Era may have been coming to an end, it still had a strong influence on Freud and his theories, and sublimation notably had an intense focus on morality and virtuousness. This differs from its conceptualization today, that has a more modern focus on individual happiness and functioning.

Psychoanalytic Theory

Early

When Freud’s theories emerged over a century ago, sublimation was seen in very sexual terms - it was seen as the final step in a three stage process where early auto-eroticism turns into fetishism and then is resolved through the sublimation process. When conducting psychoanalysis with a patient, the therapist’s goal was to identify current unwanted behaviors then work backwards to the infantile tendencies that was causing them. This was done by the process of free association, a crucial component of psychoanalysis where the patient is encouraged to speak their mind without any censorship. The second component to sublimation was the idea of a quantifiable mental energy, which is governed by the idea that the stronger impulse will always govern action, regardless of whether it is the undesired or the desired one. In this can be seen an early idea of an almost economic approach to sublimation, where the battle between the libido’s urges and the pressure to behave in a socially acceptable manner is calculated almost mathematically.

In the 1930‘s — about 25 years after the emergence of defense mechanisms — sublimation was still largely regarded as a response to sexual cravings, but professionals were slowly becoming skeptical of its “moral” responses and questioned whether so-called socially acceptable outlets were more than mere fantasy. A systematic review of psychoanalytic concepts from the Psycho-Education Clinic in New York revealed that psychologists were already doubting whether defense mechanisms were nothing more than learning through stimulus and response. Such a behaviorist interpretation of sublimation demonstrated that the psychological community had looked past the face value of defense mechanisms and was interested in getting a better understanding of the underlying processes.

By the 1960’s, defense mechanisms were about half-way between when they first arose and where they are now. In the adulthood of psychoanalysis, researchers seemed even more apprehensive of sublimation and questioned again whether it was a true accomplishment or only a reaction formation to sexual urges. Another review titled Problems of Sublimation proposed that there was no difference between sublimation and “normal” behavior, so it should be removed from from general psychoanalytic theory. Though there was disagreement between psychoanalysts, looking at the entire timeline of sublimation is important to understanding how it has evolved.

Modern

In the last two decades, the sexual elements of sublimation seemed to have been de-emphasized and instead focus has shifted to transference of reality and expression through art. A more modern evaluation of sublimation highlighted how sublimation had always been an “elusive idea” even to psychoanalysts. This assessment continued to argue that sublimation can be better accounted for by other defense mechanisms and that it should be considered as more of a normal behavior.

An artist's depiction of the Ego that guides sublimation.

A model proposed by Milchman in 1995 included cognitive operations to synergize psychoanalytic theory with modern advances in psychology. Milchman found the parallels between Jean Piaget’s Theory of Conflict Resolution and Anna Freud’s definition of mental health to be quite synonymous — they both called for a state of “internal harmony” signified by “inner equilibrium.” Sublimation allows both the original urge and the socially acceptable outlet to co-exist, since the impulse is never truly addressed but instead is being limited by engaging in acceptable activities. This leaves tension in the individual but is still nonetheless a compromise. Milchman proposed that this is evidence of the logical functioning of the human being, when met with an obstruction of what is desired the only choice left is to move to the next viable option.

A comprehensive review of social psychology studies looked for evidence of the seven defence mechanisms, with no evidence of sublimation being found. The researchers argued from a position of modern social and personality psychologists, who as a field have generally disagreed with the Freudian belief that one’s personality is heavily affected by intentional efforts to disguise sexual or aggressive impulses. However, there does appear to be a middle ground where personality researchers and psychoanalysts can meet, and that is the consensus that defense mechanisms may exist to protect a person’s self-esteem. They presumed that by sublimating antisocial urges into socially valued activities, an individual could protect his or her self-esteem. Though it is reasonable to suspect that engaging in abnormal or unacceptable activities might damage self-esteem, no such evidence could be found from either the Journal of Personality or Social Psychology in the 20 years they reviewed. Baumesiter, Dale, and Somner declared that Freudian theories were “famously difficult” to disprove, so they admit lack of evidence does not necessarily discount the existence of sublimation. But since strong evidence was found for reaction formation, isolation, and denial with partial evidence found for counterfactual thinking and projection, this did not bode well for sublimation. Even after examining all the proposed socially acceptable activities that might result from sublimation, such as art, religiosity, intellectual pursuits, creativity, no verification was found.

Current Applications

Psychoanalysis is still being used in its traditional sense as a form of talk-therapy. An example of a classic case study in psychoanalysis was published in 1999, after an 8-year analysis of a young woman who was suffering from depression and anxiety. The psychotherapist focused on the patient’s insecurities and emotional development. Through free association, the therapist discovered that the patient was presumably traumatized when 2 years old by an 8 month period in which her mother left her in the care of their neighbors. She was noted as having overcome this problem of separation and loss by sublimating her feelings into a spiritual and psychic structure. Her new found interests became a creative outlet that enriched her life. The therapist deemed this sublimation the “ultimate solution” to the patient’s experience of loss.

Outside of psychoanalysis, sublimation has also recently been examined for other more specific clinical, applied, and scientific research-based purposes. A few examples of its presence in the modern scientific community are as follows.

Sublimation and Addiction

Another conceptualization of the sublimation process involves addiction and substance abuse. Nathan Adler, from the California School of Professional Psychology, published a report outlining the concurrent processes between failed sublimation and addiction. Adler noted to the oscillation in both procedures, the swinging back and forth between the disagreeable urge — in this case, substance use — and the sublimating to a socially acceptable act. The reverie brought about by drug use, whether it’s caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, or heroin, is ultimately pleasure-seeking behavior that Freudians consider to be guided by the libido. Adler also brought to attention the considerable co-occurrence of addiction in populations known for their creativity or intellectual pursuits, common substitutes for the sublimated urges. Indeed, he found the biographies of artists and self-proclaimed “workaholics” to frequently include such addictive behaviors or personalities. Adler finished by speculating that sublimation occurs in the name pleasure-based need system of childhood, but at a later developmental stage. Treatment should therefore focus on the completion of the sublimating process.

Behavioral Economics

Proposed relationship of the effectiveness of delayed rewards over time.

A behavioral psychologist approach has typically ignored the sort of intrapsychic events that are the building blocks of psychoanalysis, but recently private motivational conflict has been examined as a possible overlap between behaviorism and defense mechanisms. Dr. Ainslie, a clinical director at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, conducted an experiment to see how the rewards of defense mechanisms (such as sublimation) are experienced over time.

The experiment showed that the delayed rewards became increasing effective over time. This relationship was best represented by an upwards concave hyperbolic curve, showing that the rewards became steadily more effective and then approached infinity moments before obtaining the reward. Dr. Ainslie demonstrated that people weigh the options of the immediate gratifications of giving into their urges and the delayed reward of other possible alternatives. In this way, sublimation may occur as people decide to shift their focus onto longer-term but ultimately more gratifying activities.

Bottom-up Processing Model

Bottom-up processing of the concept of sublimation.

An integration framework has been proposed for psychotherapy involving defence mechanisms to address the overall lack of theoretical and applied components on which it is based.

This particular integration combines the theoretical basis of Freudian sublimation with a collection of practical case examples. This article in the Journal of Psychotherapy Integration called for an overall reworking of psychodynamic principles. By examining real world patients and a multitude of cases, sublimation should be understood through these findings instead of conceptualized theoretically and then engineered to fit each individual. This bottom-up processing was argued to serve the progression of psychoanalysis into a more scientific and evidence-based approach.

The Defense Mechanism Test (DMT)

In a continued to effort to make psychoanalytic principles more objective and measurable, a test was developed to help quantify and study the emergence of defense mechanisms when participants were exposed to threatening figures. This test was titled the Defense Mechanism Test (DMT) which, despite its surprising unpopularity, has been found to have quite strong psychometric properties. The test has been shown to measure defense mechanisms independent of participant personality factors, though there is at times an expected logical overlap. With an accurate scientific measure of the Freudian defense mechanisms, the presence and inner workings of processes such as sublimation can be better used in applied therapeutic settings and improvements in theoretical progressions alike.