The meaning of the word "sublimation" is the displacement of instinctive goals into socially acceptable activities. The more a person became a cultural being, the less he could sincerely and fully realize his instinctive desires. Anna Freud believed that sublimation is a psychological defense that does not apply to personality neurosis, but reflects its normal development.
The term "sublimation" appeared originally in the theory of psychoanalysis, but gradually began to be used in everyday life of different people. This word means both increased human performance, and his desire for high results in sports, and enthusiastic research activities. Sublimation carries a sexual connotation: it is believed that a person achieves the indicated results by refusing a sexual life. In fact, this is not entirely true, because sublimation is a protection against sexual desire, which seeks to be realized contrary to cultural prohibitions, i.e. with the help of sublimation, a person limits at himself only the extra part of energy, which he successfully directs to socially acceptable activities.
The use of sublimation in parenting
Sublimation is a way of using for social purposes not only excess sexual, but also aggressive energy. Aggressive and sexual drives have the same stages in their development; similar protective mechanisms are used to limit them . So, it is recommended to sublimate children with increased aggressiveness, not sitting on a stool, but engaging in active activities in the form of labor, sports, and active games. Children in adolescence experience increased libido, attraction to the opposite sex. Sigmund Freud saw one of the most important tasks of upbringing in the taming, limitation and submission of sexual desire, because with his breakthrough comes the end of the influence of education. He recommended attracting energy to labor, which is a vital necessity for maintaining society. At each age, the transfer of sexual energy occurs through activities appropriate to the age of the child. Young children are given the opportunity to draw, sculpt, construct, and older children are able to show their success in the form of achievements in learning, sports, and creativity. This is how sublimation manifests itself. This should happen by independent choice of the child, and not be imposed by the adult.
Sublimation as the ultimate defense mechanism
Psychological defenses are not realized by a person, but they can be determined by analyzing his actions. Most often this is done by an outside observer. Sublimation is a protection that can not only be realized independently, but also designed by a person who chooses a particular occupation as a way of avoiding intense anger, the desire to destroy a valuable object, and also refusing forbidden sexual contact. We can assume that sublimation is the ability to control oneself, one's instincts and drives, to choose an acceptable and socially approved way of satisfying a need. Managing his drives, a person suppresses his manic or incestuous desires, realizing them in creating paintings, works. With poor-quality work of sublimation, a person realizes his aggressive and sexual fantasies in a dream, gets scared of his drives and unconsciously uses additional types of psychological protection: crowding out, isolation, denial, intellectualization and others.
Almost all of our culture, works of art, scientific achievements appeared due to sublimation, because man learned not only to restrain his animal instincts, but also to direct unspent energy to the development of society.