ABSTRACT
Historically the concept of sublimation has passed through two phases of development. Up to the year 1923 interest in sublimation was largely phenomenological. A few generalizations had been advanced concerning the mechanism of sublimation, but pronouncements on dynamic aspects were practically restricted to the relation of sublimation to the 'return of the repressed', ultimately to symptom-formation. In cultural valuations of sublimation, cognizance is inevitably taken of the object as well as of the aim of the impulse; and, strictly speaking, this is not in the bargain. The main feature in the definition of sublimation was, it will be remembered, the fact of change of aim. This brings finally to recent formulations on the modifications of energy involved in sublimation. In essence this is a theoretical matter, a matter of Id psychology; clinical contact is practically limited to a discussion of sources of instincts and to observation of the phenomena connected with reactive instincts.
