8. Unsatisfied Wishes and Sublimation - Square Circles Publishing

SOURCE 8: THE MIND AT MISCHIEF
In all probability there is only one
ultimate psychic energy which, like
physical energy, can be directed into
different channels.... For example, an
individual feels “restless,” he then desires
to play tennis; the afternoon is wet: he
plays chess instead. His psychic energy
has been diverted from one channel to
another with its accompanying
excitement and satisfaction of desire:
with its final feeling of fatigue and
repletion (B 35).
There is no question but that psychic
energy can be diverted; it can be
transferred or transmuted.
Proper mental training does enable one to
effect transference of desire from one
object to another or from one channel to
another.
[See 8:8, below.]
But more about sublimation in the final
section of this chapter.
REPRESSED WISHES
8:1.1 Parents and teachers should
direct their efforts to teaching sublimation
as a corollary of repression. The
disturbances resulting from a repressed
emotion should be transmuted by means
of sublimation attained through
progressive displacement.
IV: DETERMINISM AND WILL
POWER (Bousfield 41)
The second factor which determines
the mode of expression of this out-burst
of repressed energy is known as the law
of regression. This means that if the adult
outlet of energy becomes dammed up or
is insufficient, the energy will flow
through an earlier channel which has
once been used (B 47).
8:1.2 When this emotional problem is
not properly handled there is very apt to
occur—in connection with some period
of stress and strain in later life—a
reversion of emotional behavior to some
older and unsublimated channel,
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