INTRODUCTION
us how the concept of sublimation originated, in sequence, from the notions of “reaction formation” from “reversal into the opposite” and from “aim inhibition” to its definition by Freud as “the third and most complete drive destiny”.
Later on, when theoretical and clinical models that were different to Freudian metapsychology came into the picture, the author shows that even if it has continued to operate in the clinical reality of individuals and the community, it has often done so in disguise and within different theorisations.
Certainly, the affirmation of the object relations theoretical model in psychoanalytic thinking has encouraged a change of emphasis. However, a series of psychic processes previously defined as “sublimatory” have been shown as an effect of a process of “reparation” of the object, this latter concept developed by Melanie Klein. Still within the Kleinian realm, the link between sublimation and symbolisation has been pointed out with great perspicuity, in my opinion, and with Winnicott sublimation virtually coincides with the formation of cultural experience, which, as the author observed, indicates a shift from instinct to object. André Green, despite respect for Freud’s approach, did not fail to relate sublimation to the instincts of the ego and, hence, according to the second topic, with the death drives, in the formulation of the “objectivising function” concept, implicitly touches on something concerning the process of sublimation. The same notion of “figurability”, elaborated by Sára and César Botella, could not be conceived without a reference—more or less implicit—to sublimation. But this, as Valdrè points out, means that sublimation does not concern so much real desexualisation, and so Thanatos, as it does Eros, understood as an “objectualising function” and so with a representational function. In each case the link between sublimation and symbolisation remains evident in all of this theorising including Matte Blanco’s interpretation where sublimation is bound up with a process of formalisation. Lastly, Lacan, on the basis of Freud’s defining it as the third and most complete drive destiny, holds that sublimation is the manifestation of the elevation of the representation of the Thing. In short, the link between sublimation and creativity appears clear, on the basis of the closeness between sexuality and artistic experience intended also as curiosity fulfilled. So in the light of more recent theorisations we have to consider that for a full understanding of sublimatory phenomena it is necessary to have a theoretical capacity that oscillates between the metapsychological and objectival approach.
If, as far as the manifestations of psychopathology and of the psychology of the individual are concerned, the disappearance of sublimation, as the author maintains, seem more apparent than real, how are things on the collective functioning level? Here I have to recognise a profound transformation in social functioning. In the words of J. F. Lyotard we must say that, with the transit from modernity to postmodernity or, to radical modernity, we have come out of the grands récits, from the ideologies that have characterised philosophical and political modernity and we are, to use Zygmunt Bauman’s term, in a sort of “liquid society”. Psychoanalysis, that—principally, though not exclusively—of Lacanian origin, speaks of the fall of “the Name of the Father” (le Nom du Père) that is of oedipal order. This implies a regression to a functioning that is closer to that of a “primitive horde” in which it is not “the law” that holds sway but rather—in a context characterised by a sort of homo homini lupus est—it is the strongest, who on the basis of his strength, commands and establishes the law.
With the words of René Kaës, the fall of the “metasocial guarantors” results in the correlative fall of the “metapsychic guarantors”, that is to say, the function in accordance with the oedipal structure. At the level of the psychology of the individual, this leads to a regression, if not a disappearance, of the “subjectival dimension”, that is to say, of the possibility to become a “subject” of a psychic organisation founded on the conflict between desire and prohibition, this latter being a process on which Kultur is founded.
That being so, in this situation the sublimation process fails and is replaced by the “order of pleasure”. Paradoxically, here, the superego’s injunction is turned upside down and becomes, “Enjoy!”. Clearly the object is more interchangeable than ever and must always be available, and so his will be a statute that is absolutely narcissistic.
In the light of these cultural transformations, what will be the fate of the process of civilisation and the consequent “discontent” involved due to the drive repression that is necessary to it? What we see in postmodern society is that the reduction of drive repression and the corresponding push to sublimation means that the gain permitted by the latter, in terms of a partial freedom from the coaction of the drives, is failing, leaving individuals totally subject to the imperative of the drives.
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