TITLE:
An Outline of Sublimation from a Freudian Perspective
AUTHORS:
Érico Bruno Viana Campos
KEYWORDS:
Psychoanalysis and Culture, Sublimation, Freud, Sigmund (1856-1939)
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.16 No.2,
February
26,
2025
ABSTRACT: This theoretical essay aims to present a metapsychological synthesis for the sublimation concept in a Freudian framework. Two discourses on sublimation are presented and it is proposed that they integrate distinct moments in a general process: secondary sublimation, related to the first drive dualism, in which the sublimation concerns desexualization of drives through object and goal substitution; primary sublimation, related to the second drive dualism, in which the sublimation concerns the erotization of death drives, through narcissistic identifications. The implications for the relation between desire and culture, as well as for the psychoanalytic concept of subjectivity, are discussed.