Now we've got a couple more to look at.
Sublimation is one that we all engage in. Now we all engage in all of these to some
degree but more or less depending on what your issues and hangups might be
but sublimation is key in developing a socially appropriate
persona. You have to, you have to put your id in check
to live in society. Like I said before, if you can't put your id in check
then you might become a dictator if you're successful and then you
get to do whatever you want, to whomever you want, whenever you want. In which case
your id dominates but you have the power
to enforce that domination, but in most
societies that are run by dictators, and where there's a system of justice, a
code of justice, we have all defined what's
appropriate, allowable or what's not allowable and so the person who can't put the
id in check
winds up often times on the wrong side of the law or becomes a very successful
criminal perhaps, because they're
gratifying those impulses that other people put in to check.
How do you put it in to check? Sublimation. Sublimation is what we're talking about.
Replacing
socially unacceptable impulses that
aren't acknowledged, again, with socially acceptable behavior.
So, if you've got a toddler who's very aggressive and a person is
pretty aggressive in their early childhood, well they learn that they
can't just be aggressive whenever and wherever they want. There are
consequences to that. They'll be punished for that
and they won't be able to exhibit that kind of behavior without
paying a price. So, they then... it's not that the aggression goes away. They learn
that you can't exhibit certain kinds of aggression in certain kinds of situations but
there are other situations within society
where you can gain an outlet, an expression for that impulse.
For example, contact sports. For example, you might become a very, very
good football player
by tackling the hell out of somebody, knocking them over; a great hockey player by
checking them a lot. A lot of aggression but it's agreed upon aggression
and people pay a lot of money to watch this socially appropriate aggression.
Why is it socially appropriate? Because society allows for it. That's fine.
That's what Freud is saying, is society defines what's proper and what's not proper
and allows
for that to be expressed in various ways. So, if somebody's got a really
a powerful id urge and in a
way that they're not comfortable in terms of their sexuality. They might express
that through erotic art. So, they might draw
provocative images or engage in kinds of
art expressions of arts sculpture, photography, etc., that gratifies
that impulse.
So that it's in an appropriate channel. Some people may
disagree about whether that's appropriate. The person who's the most
prudish will be probably the person who has the greatest desire
towards that kind of expression but doesn't acknowledge it and so then is
engaging in reaction formation against it.
But for Freud, this is just natural deep-seated,
human impulses that had been channeled into socially appropriate behaviors and
allow for us to flourish and to go on and gain our abilities to be
societally appropriate. Projection, attributing ones own unacceptable feelings
and thoughts onto others, not ourselves. So,
similar in a way to reaction formation. This is less severe.
So, if somebody says, well, I think you are cheating on me,
but there's no evidence to support that somebody is being cheated upon,
that mere expression of suspicion
might be more indicative of the person who's doing the accusing's
desires, that they would like to cheat, or maybe they would like to
dally about and play the field, but they're not doing it
and so they suspect it in their partner, for example,
or the people who are always anal about being on time. Ever why these people are
late.
I'm one of those. Watch everybody late. I'm on time.
I am on time. Well maybe I'd really like to be late. Maybe, I would like to be more
laid back. Maybe, I would like to just not have the responsibility to care
and so I'm just going to project that onto somebody else and start critiquing
them for not living up to my standards.
Rationalization, that's pretty common.
Creating false excuses from one's own unacceptable feelings, thoughts, or
behaviors.
Rationalize them. Just make them go away by making a logically plausible explanation.
Excuse making really? So somebody gets caught cheating on an exam. They're like, well,
everybody else is
cheating, too, right? They're doing it so
what do you expect from me? Well, that's kind of beside the point that everybody
else is cheating. Probably everybody else isn't cheating but the question is why are you
cheating?
And your answer isn't that, oh well, I had this really deep desire to
get an advantage over people without putting forth a lot of effort.
So, that's why I cheated. it's, oh, everybody's doing it so I do it too.
It's an excuse making
mechanism that allows me to live with my cheating by simply
excusing it away, and then denial, classical cliche. Denial is not just a river in
Egypt.
It's a very profound defense mechanism.
Refusing, simply refusing to accept anxiety producing realities.
So, in substance abuse that's very common.
People say, I don't have a problem. You've got a problem. I don't have a problem.
I don't drink too much. I don't use too many drugs, right? Somebody who might have lung
cancer, for example, who's been smoking all their life, and they're, well, it wasn't the smoking. It was
something else that caused it,
right? It's not that. So the reality being
fairly obvious to other people, the person who is faced with that reality
can't face
up to the reality. They simply change the reality by denying its existence.
So those are some of the defense mechanisms that we will talk about in
the Freudian
Psychoanalytic System.