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Sublimation

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The redirection of sexual desire to "higher" aims. Freud saw sublimation as a protection against illness, since it allowed the subject to respond to sexual frustration (lack of gratification of the sexual impulse) by taking a new aim that, though still "genetically" (Introductory Lectures 16.345) related to the sexual impulse, is no longer properly sexual but social. In this way, civilization has been able to place "social aims higher than the sexual ones, which are at bottom self-interested" (Introductory Lectures 16.345). This is not to say that the "free mobility of the libido" (Introductory Lectures 16.346) is ever fully contained: "sublimation is never able to deal with more than a certain fraction of libido" (Introductory Lectures 16.346).
==def==
In [[psychology]], '''sublimation''' is a [[coping]] mechanism. It has its roots in the psychoanalytical approach, and is often also referred to as a type of [[defense mechanism]].
 
Sublimation is the refocusing of psychic energy (which [[Sigmund Freud]] believed was limited) away from negative outlets to more positive outlets. These drives which cannot find an outlet are rechanneled. For example, a student who has a major upcoming test, rather than spending time and energy worrying about it, would rechannel that time and energy into studying. In Freud's classic theory, erotic energy is only allowed limited expression due to [[Psychological repression|repression]], and much of the remainder of a given group's erotic energy is used to develop its [[culture]] and [[civilization]].
 
Freud considered this defense mechanism the most productive compared to the others that he identified (ie., [[Psychological repression|repression]], [[Displacement_(psychology)|displacement]], [[denial]], [[reaction formation]], [[intellectualization]] and [[Psychological projection|projection]]). Sublimation is the process of transforming [[libido]] into "social useful" achievements, mainly [[art]]. Psychoanalysts often refer to sublimation as the only truly successful defense mechanism.
== References ==
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