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Although they are attempts at sublimation, obsessive hobbies actually are unsatisfactory defenses against anxiety. They are more tolerable than symptoms. Three psychoneurotic boys in prepuberty provided the clinical material for this study. Though the nature of the psychotherapeutic situation is not revealed, rich biographic information (and in one case emotionally
charged drawings) made possible a deep understanding of the pathogenesis and the psychodynamic function of the obsessive activity. In conclusion, Eisenstein considers the hobby a transition between true sublimation and neurotic symptom, or between a compulsive symptom and a perversion.