Sublimation

— Something i’ve become aware of by reading Nietzsche and that Freud took up later on (along with Nietzsche’s girlfriend Lou Salome) is the notion of sublimation. That is that certain drives can find their expression in other drives. For example: Someone may have a strong sex drive but redirect that towards work instead. I welcome your questions, comments, and dissertations.

I have a feeling that all drives share a common component, that being the life energy.
So instead of sex drive being redirected for work, it is just the focus of the bodies energy that is shifted to different areas.
When we feel horny the focus of our attention is on our genitals etc, when we are trying understand something the focus of energy would be in a certain area of the brain.
When we feel confused that focus of energy tends not to be focused at all but sort of floating round the body looking for focus.
Whether that focus can be split into two areas I am not sure, but thinking of my experiences, I say not.
They way I see meditation is to unfocus the energy and use it to be aware of everything all at once.

Focus of energy is something I am currently interested in and am trying to make observations on where, what and how tightly, my mind is focused on something, leads me to thinking that you can focus your mind in unison with your eyes, to study visual detail or with your ears to focus on where a sound is, or focus your mind on it’s own, independant of any other sense.
How many times have you known something, eg that your wife is on her way home? Just by sensing, eg pinpointing your minds focus on that person and being able to roughly say where they are.
Another example is when an item is lost in the home and you do a search for it, more often than not it can be found quickly, just by, in my observations, making a mental scan of the area, and homing in on the object. This of course is all done subconciously.
(A side effect(?) of my schizophrenia is that I tend to be relatively aware of some of my subconcious processeses, this is why I find it hard to drive long distances as the information overload is Immense, what others process automatically, I tend to do conciously)
Of course mental focus and mental awareness does not work 100% of the time, there are other factors like tiredness, stress, or just murphy’s law at work to make you unable to focus in on your chosen subject.

MentulZen.

well. Id have to say that sublimation is true. But has anyone argued if its healty?

— I would say that energies are transferrable to an extent, perhaps sublimation doesn’t even happen in the absence of another frustrated drive. Whether it is healthy or not may well depend on how much gets sublimated and whether some kind of balance is maintained.

Marshall McDaniel

Do you mean sublimation like when for instance: a individual has had problems with his girlfriend, when he goes out and meets up with his friends he consciously forgets about whats going on at home but the stress is still lurking around his phychic; then later on a friends accidentally knocks his elbow and all his frustration is realised with a more violent then usual outburst then the normally calm and forgiving individual is?

Or do you mean I a more hidden sexual way or hidden dominational way?


sublimation

To divert the energy associated with (an unacceptable impulse or drive) into a personally and socially acceptable activity.

source: dictionary.com

Given that definition, i would say that your example could be called sublimation, especially if one considers it risky to fuss at one’s partner.

Reply to Marshall McDaniel

It seems to me that “Psychological Sublimation”, and “Psychological Energy” are subjective conjectures which means they cannot be measured and observed objectively. If that is true then I can’t see the use of them, although they like many conjectures may be fun to talk about.

— These things are not conjectures, they are demonstrated by psychologists everyday; also there are a lot of things that can not be “objectively measured” but remain nevertheless quite useful e.g. You can’t measure consciousness, but you have to use it everyday.

How do psychologists demonstrate “Psychological Sublimation” and “Psychological Energy” everyday?

I prefer at broad objective definition of consciousness which can be observed and measured. My own consciousness that I use everyday is an innate freebie that cannot be observed and measured even by me. Although I concede my own subjective consciousness, the only consciousness that I find worth talking about is objective consciousness. Therefore as far as I’m concerned consciousness is not a mere conjecture.

http://www.hypnosense.com/Sublimation.htm

Reply to Marshall McDaniel

I read the item by Terence Watts about sublimation at the web site you referenced. There was nothing to indicate that “Psychological Sublimation”, and “Psychological Energy” were anything but subjective conjectures. I accept that he interviewed a woman who hated children and loved animals, and that these objective behaviors could be observed and measured. However, there was no mention of how to go about observing and measuring sublimation or psychic energy.

My arguments are only for “sublimation”, which is the topic of this thread. I would be happy to debate this in the chamber if you feel so inclined. :laughing:

Reply to Marshall McDaniel

I am so inclined, and sent an email to the Chamber Guru asking about it.

— Welcome to the forum. you need to register to be in the chamber i think. I look forward to debating our ideas.

Reply to Marshall McDaniel

I’m waiting for an email or something to happen in the Camber.

On the topic of sumblimation: I truely believe that it happens. The example of being pissed off and then going to the gym and having a great workout comes to mind. The channeling of your destructive energies into something constructive. In the same way, other drives that need release of energies and do not have an avenue at hand can then redirect the influx of energy to be manifested through a way that is more available.

Carl Jung in fact says that this is a process that happens all the time to maintain balance in the psyche. Taking his ideas even further I would say that this is a necissary process to protect the psyche. Like shaking up soda in a bottle, when pressure builds past a controlable level it searches desperately for an avenue to escape. Sooner ot later, if this pressure (or energies) continue to build they will rupture this container in a lsat resort to escape. In this case the release of such energies from the psyche would be where someone temporarily “snaps” and does somehting completely out of character (in the case of sexual frustration a mild example would be in the movie “The Sandlot” during the pool scene where that one kid trys drowning himself so the lifegaurd would give him cpr and he could then kiss her) and then after that sudden “snapping” the person seems completely normal, or in fact they seem unusually relaxed as if a great weight had been lifted off of them.

In the case of extremely negative energies: There are certain parts of people that they’d rather not admit, or just pretend they don’t exist at all. Such things are repressed in the shadow. Energies belonging to these parts also have a chance of being repressed into the shadow if they are not vented. Energies not acknowledged an suppresed into the shadow, Jung states, then feed into complexes and create an instability within the psyche (too much negative, not enough positive) and psychological problems often can result.

So I would argue that sumblimation is a necissary defense mechanism of the psyche for those who do not reacognize the implications of supressing energies, or for those who simply do not know how to deal with such energies any other way when they arise (thus saving them from themselves. If you don’t know any other way to get rid of energies than acting upon them, sumblimation at least channels the energies to usually constructive means).

EDIT: Correcting some spelling errors

Reply to: Qzxtvbzr

Sigmund Freud first used defense as a psychoanalytic term in 1894. I couldn’t find who started using the term sublimation, but it may have been Sigmund or his daughter Anna. The study of psychology has progressed far since then.

The concept of sublimation is a plausible explanation for certain observed behaviors as are the explanations of Carl Jung. The trouble with sublimation is that many other plausible explanations are also possible, and there is no way to establish which plausible explanation is best. That’s because there is no way to observe sublimation in action or to measure it. Like many scientific concepts sublimation started out as a conjectural explanation, but unlike scientific conjectures that become established as scientific fact, no way was discovered to objectively observe and measure sublimation. It is a process alleged to take place in a person’s mind, but there is no way for anyone to objectively tell what another person is thinking. The main virtue of sublimation as a scientific concept is that it has never been disproved, a virtue also shared by UFOs and ESP.

There is no doubt that many if not most of my thought processes are unconscious. When I see a ball coming my way I don’t think about it I just do it. The more I practice the less conscious thought it takes. As far as the behavioral scenarios to which sublimation applies it seems to me that genetics, environmental effects on the fetus during gestation, and childhood experiences are the most likely root causes of adult behavior. Fortunately they can also be observed and measured, but unfortunately the accumulation of such data must necessarily span most of a lifetime so progress has been and will continue to be slow.

— So sublimation can be measured? I would be very interested in hearing about that.