8. Unsatisfied Wishes and Sublimation - Square Circles Publishing

SOURCE 8: THE MIND AT MISCHIEF
and when harmony reigns where formerly
conflict raged, we speak of the completed
process as sublimation.
The theory of emergent evolution,
therefore, from the mental hygiene point
of view, means that for every new
adjustment, every solution of an
intrapsychic conflict that raises the level
of adjustment, a new world, small or large
as the case may be, opens to view with all
the possibilities that implies for a fuller
life (W 250).
And this is all consistent with the theory
of progressive and directive evolution,
which teaches us that higher organisms
are evolved from the lower groups.
The first and fundamental conclusion
is that conflict lies at the very basis of
life, in fact that the fact of life has its
being in conflict.
8:8.2 We must recognize, to begin
with, that conflict lies at the very basis of
life.
Elementary life is never peaceful, and it is
not strange, therefore, that
The second fundamentally important
conclusion is that this conflict is between
the two diametrically opposed
tendencies—the race preservative and the
self-preservative (W 253).
conflicts should arise between the selfpreservation
urges and the higher urges of
race preservation,
as well as between other groups of
psychic complexes.
Just as conflict is at the basis of life so it
is also of consciousness (W 254).
Just as certainly as conflict is the basis of
physical life, it is early manifested as a
part of the developmental phase of
psychic life.
If we postulate as primitive instincts such
impulses as self-assertion and selfabasement,
we can hardly refrain from
recognizing that such emotions are
destined ever to be in comparative
conflict.
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