ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the psycho-analytical conception that sublimation is a form of discharge of the instinctual drive to the creation. Gratification on the part of the ego is also an essential element in sublimation; since the ego does not have recourse to repression, it is not restricted and impoverished but enriched by the sublimatory activity. The chapter reviews Sigmund Freud's original concept of sublimation as an activity in which the sexual impulse is deflected from its direct aim but does not succumb to repression, which leads to achievements serving a social or higher interest and involves an adaptation to reality. Life is bound up with the dynamic processes set up by aggression, guilt, anxiety and grief about the internal objects, and by the impulses of love and restoration; Love and Hate are urging the subject to strive for the sublimation.
