In psychology, sublimation is a mature type of defense mechanism, in which socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior, possibly resulting in a long-term conversion of the initial impulse.

Sigmund Freud believed that sublimation was a sign of maturity and civilization, allowing people to function normally in culturally acceptable ways. He defined sublimation as the process of deflecting sexual instincts into acts of higher social valuation, being "an especially conspicuous feature of cultural development; it is what makes it possible for higher psychical activities, scientific, artistic or ideological, to play such an 'important' part in civilized life."^[1] Wade and Travis present a similar view, stating that sublimation occurs when displacement "serves a higher cultural or socially useful purpose, as in the creation of art or inventions."^[2]

In the opening section of Human, All Too Human entitled "Of first and last things", Nietzsche wrote:^[3]

There is, strictly speaking, neither unselfish conduct, nor a wholly disinterested point of view. Both are simply sublimations in which the basic element seems almost evaporated and betrays its presence only to the keenest observation. All that we need and that could possibly be given us in the present state of development of the sciences, is a chemistry of the moral, religious, aesthetic conceptions and feeling, as well as of those emotions which we experience in the affairs, great and small, of society and civilization, and which we are sensible of even in solitude. But what if this chemistry established the fact that, even in its domain, the most magnificent results were attained with the basest and most despised ingredients? Would many feel disposed to continue such investigations? Mankind loves to put by the questions of its origin and beginning: must one not be almost inhuman in order to follow the opposite course?^[4]

In Freud's psychoanalytical theory, erotic energy is allowed a limited amount of expression, owing to the constraints of human society and civilization itself. It therefore requires other outlets, especially if an individual is to remain psychologically balanced. The ego must act as a mediator between the moral norms of the super-ego, the realistic expectations of reality, and the drives and impulses of the id. One method by which the ego lessens the stress that unacceptably strong urges or emotions can cause is through sublimation.^[5]

Sublimation (German: Sublimierung) is the process of transforming libido into "socially useful" achievements, including artistic, cultural, and intellectual pursuits. Freud considered this psychical operation to be fairly salutary compared to the others that he identified, such as repression, displacement, denial, reaction formation, intellectualisation, and projection. In The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence (1936), his daughter, Anna, classed sublimation as one of the major 'defence mechanisms' of the psyche.^[6]

Freud got the idea of sublimation while reading The Harz Journey by Heinrich Heine. The story is about Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach who cut off the tails of dogs he encountered in childhood and later became a surgeon. Freud concluded that sublimation could be a conflict between the need for satisfaction and the need for security without perturbation of awareness. In an action performed many times throughout one's life, which firstly appears sadistic, thought is ultimately refined into an activity which is of benefit to mankind.^[7]

C. G. Jung argued that Freud's opinion:

...can only be based on the totally erroneous supposition that the unconscious is a monster. It is a view that springs from fear of nature and the realities of life. Freud invented the idea of sublimation to save us from the imaginary claws of the unconscious. But what is real, what actually exists, cannot be alchemically sublimated, and if anything is apparently sublimated it never was what a false interpretation took it to be.^[13]

In the same article, Jung went on to suggest that unconscious processes became dangerous only to the extent that people repress them. The more people come to assimilate and recognize the unconscious, the less of a danger it becomes. In this view sublimation requires not repression of drives through will, but acknowledgement of the creativity of unconscious processes and a learning of how to work with them.

This differs fundamentally from Freud's view of the concept. For Freud, sublimation helped explain the plasticity of the sexual instincts (and their convertibility to non-sexual ends) - see libido. The concept also underpinned Freud's psychoanalytical theories, which showed the human psyche at the mercy of conflicting impulses (such as the super-ego and the id). In his private letters, Jung criticized Freud for obscuring the alchemical origins of sublimation and for attempting instead to make the concept appear scientifically credible:

Sublimation is part of the royal art where the true gold is made. Of this Freud knows nothing; worse still, he barricades all the paths that could lead to true sublimation. This is just about the opposite of what Freud understands by sublimation. It is not a voluntary and forcible channeling of instinct into a spurious field of application, but an alchymical transformation for which fire and prima materia are needed. Sublimation is a great mystery. Freud has appropriated this concept and usurped it for the sphere of the will and the bourgeois, rationalistic ethos.^[14]

This section relies excessively on references to primary sources. (January 2024)

A study by Kim, Zeppenfeld, and Cohen studied sublimation by empirical methods.^[29] These investigators view their research, published 2013 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, as providing "possibly the first experimental evidence for sublimation and [suggesting] a cultural psychological approach to defense mechanisms."^[29]: 639

As espoused in the Tanya,^[30] Hasidic Jewish mysticism views sublimation of the animal soul as an essential task in life, wherein the goal is to transform animalistic and earthy cravings for physical pleasure into holy desires to connect with God.

Different schools of thought describe general sexual urges as carriers of spiritual essence, and have the varied names of vital energy, vital winds (prana), spiritual energy, ojas, shakti, tummo, or kundalini.^[31][32][33]

• One of the best-known examples in Western literature is in Thomas Mann's novella, Death in Venice, where the protagonist Gustav von Aschenbach, a famous writer, sublimates his desire for an adolescent boy into writing poetry.^[34][35]
• In The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, sublimation is presented as the source of the Neo-Victorians' dominance: "...it was precisely their emotional repression that made the Victorians the richest and most powerful people in the world. Their ability to submerge their feelings, far from pathological, was rather a kind of mystical art that gave them nearly magical power over Nature and over the more intuitive tribes. Such was also the strength of the Nipponese."