On Sublimation. Validity of the Drive and its Vicissitudes

Abstract

The paper refers to the Freudian concept of effective reality (Wircklichkeit) in order to emphasize the effects of the parental and social Other that constitutes us. Unconscious subjectivity and the social environment of every period of time make the subject unique. The word constitutes the psychic subject from the structure of the ties of kinship in any period of time or place. Sexuality and discourse mutually belong to one another. In this way, gaze and voice build an image where the mirror-like quality is the foundation of identifications. All of them typical elements of what is specific of psychoanalysis. Every unconscious representation brings up to the present incarnated experiences of the wish that do not correspond to any material aspect that we can have any evidence of, other than through its effects. The essence of the eventful life of the drive and its vicissitudes or defenses does not change, but it is rather the fantasized contents which mould subjectivities that change. We witness new forms of presentation of the pain, hate, love and guilt, the unconscious sexuality that embraces them and which calls for our attention. But the metapsychological tools that give them shape do not change. The structural difference between the ideal and the idealizations, where the idealized violence is rooted and it indicates the pathology of the ideal, is briefly described. There is a renewed look at the drive and its vicissitudes that gives rise to the unconscious subjectivity. The idea of the five vicissitudes of the drive is revisited, a dynamic situation of interrelation, which is essential, between each and every one of them. The relation between repression and sublimation is privileged regarding the changes undergone by the ideal in our present time. The ideal is nurtured by the effects of the symbolic castration; it points to the sublimation in play and, in turn, to its strong tie to repression. The ideal emerges from the acceptance of limits, not from their transgression. Typical elements of the sublimatory function are listed, together with their vicissitudes, which have an early start in the life of the subject. Insomuch as we are born tied to the drive, we cannot live without sublimating. And given the fact that we depend on the parental and social Other for our lives, we are living witnesses of the changing position of the law all along the centuries.