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The English version of this paper is a translation by Ana Pieczanski from the one published in Spanish in the 1956 Revista de Psicoanálisis, 13(4): 456–460.
Clinical experience indicates that in certain patients strong tendencies towards omnipotence exist simultaneously with a certain capacity for sublimation. The issue we present in this work is: What is the relationship between the two phenomena, omnipotence and sublimation?
In his work on stages in the development of the sense of reality, Ferenczi described the phenomenon of omnipotence as a child’s way to control those objects that are vitally important to his survival. But in that paper, Ferenczi had not established a difference between the internal and external object. The work of M. Klein and her disciples more deeply explains the omnipotence phenomenon, attributing greater importance to the objects introjected by the child during the first years of his life.
Paula Heimann says: While in reality the child is completely defenseless and depends on the mother for support, in phantasy he adopts a position of omnipotence regarding his objects: these belong to him, are a part of him, live exclusively for him.
Correlatively with this development of omnipotence, a denial of reality emerges. According to Paula Heimann, the child does not yet recognize the objects, because his capacity for perception develops gradually. However, the child partially denies, for psychological reasons, what he perceives, through omnipotence and magic.
S. Isaacs describes that when the child cannot control his objects he feels a catastrophic loss due to the inability to satisfy his desires and needs in the “here and now.”