sublimation A defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, by which instinctual drives, consciously unacceptable, are diverted into personally and socially acceptable channels.

Did you ever want something you couldn’t have?

Haven’t we all.

What do you do when you can’t have what you want? In common usage, sublimation seems to mean the unconscious replacement of impulse with a socially acceptable alternative. The alternative must not only be socially acceptable; it must partially satisfy the original instinct, the original need. This is the psychological equivalent of substituting hardtack for Cinnabons or Shirley Temples for vodka tonics.

Sublimation theory over the last hundred years or so has been very tied up with Freudian theories of the id and ego. And in almost every case the act of sublimation has been considered to be an unconscious act, outside of one’s control or even awareness. Consider, for example, the following lengthy text from Clinical Studies in Psychiatry, by Henry Stack Sullivan:

But what about this business of sublimating? Let us say that a person has a need for satisfaction that has gotten him into trouble; and he wishes he could do something about it, bur knows that he can’t. Let us say that somebody else comes along and tells him, “I’m afraid, my good man, that you would have to have a special universe in order to Proceed directly to get this satisfaction. It just isn’t done; it’s going to make a lot of trouble. Bur why not do so-and-so, which will really come quite close to giving you satisfaction, and is done, and is socially approved?” Then the person is perfectly justified in saying, “I’m profoundly grateful to you. That, of course, is extremely good advice. I shall follow it.” And we’ll say that he does. Now it might seem that in the course of events the person would become so habituated in doing this socially approved thing for partial satisfaction of his needs that it would be almost the same as direct complete satisfaction. If he lived long enough, that might be the case. But for a very long time he would have to remind himself that, while this is not quite what he wants and is really a good deal more work, it is the only way that he can get part of his satisfaction and feel secure too. In other words, he will have an awareness of frustration, of dissatisfaction, because what he is doing is not the direct and simple thing that he really wants, but is what he has to do to feel secure. And this is not the sort of thing that makes a person feel very proud of himself, very sure of himself, and very well pleased with life. It means that he has to be careful to choke off every impulse for direct satisfaction and drag in this partial satisfaction pattern that has social approval, and make the most of what he gets out of it. Now this is what would happen if sublimation could be within awareness.

So then, what do we call a consciously attempt to sublimate desires? If I want to kick puppies [I don't - ed.], and knowing that, instead take up karate, is that sublimation, or something else entirely? What does one call the directed replacement? I’m not a psychiatrist, psychologist, or anything even closely related, but I would suppose that this is still sublimation. If Picasso wanted to fuck Germaine Florentin, but instead turned his sexual energy toward the creation of Moulin de la Galette:

is it plausible that he did so consciously? I believe so. It seems like a most perfectly rational mental process: “I want X; I can not have X; therefore I will do Y, which partially satisfies my need for X.” (n.b.: Picasso did end up fucking Germaine Florentin; maybe she liked his paintings).

There is evidence that sublimation has been thought of in conscious terms. In The Discovery of the Unconcsious, writes about Nietzsche:

The concept of sublimation, which was not new, was applied by Nietzsche both to the sexual and the aggressive instincts. He considered sublimation a result of inhibition or of an intellectual process, and a very widespread manifestation. “Good actions are sublimated evil ones.” Even in their most sublimated forms, instincts retain their importance: “The degree and quality or a person’s sexuality finds its way into the topmost reaches of his spirit.”

In some ways, the daily diarist can be thought of as sublimating – writing down possibly unacceptable thoughts in a private journal. Even bloggers? Perhaps. If you’re writing a blog post with a specific, societally unacceptable desire firmly in the forefront of your mind, perhaps you are sublimating, and perhaps a careful reading can detect the whiff of implication in your words.