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This paper was read to the British Psycho-Analytical Society in January 1958, as an enlarged version of a paper presented at the 20th International Psycho-Analytical Congress, Paris, 1957. It was accepted for publication by the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis in 1959, in vol. 40 (5/6). However, Paula Heimann withdrew the paper for reasons unknown. A German translation though appeared in Psyche in 1959, vol. 13 (7), and a revised version of it in Psychologie des Ich, Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (1974) pp. 239–61. We have taken from the latter notes which were added in 1974.
This paper was read to the British Psycho-Analytical Society in January 1958, as an enlarged version of a paper presented at the 20th International Psycho-Analytical Congress, Paris, 1957. It was accepted for publication by the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis in 1959, in vol. 40 (5/6). However, Paula Heimann withdrew the paper for reasons unknown. A German translation though appeared in Psyche in 1959, vol. 13 (7), and a revised version of it in Psychologie des Ich, Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (1974) pp. 239–61. We have taken from the latter notes which were added in 1974.
The concept of sublimation has met with considerable criticism for a long time. It has recently again come under review in the wake of the research into ego psychology based on Freud’s last theories of the mind (1937–8), research which has done much to clarify his highly condensed formulations in those papers. In the framework of the present paper it is impossible to discuss adequately the considerations put forward in recent literature. I shall only—somewhat brusquely and arbitrarily—mention those conclusions which are significant for my own views on the nature of sublimation. In his historical and critical survey of the development of the concept of sublimation Hartmann (1955) rescues it from the inhibiting notion that it is a capacity of ‘the few’ only. Leaving room in his