Hockenbury Discovering Psychology 5th txtbk

424 CHAPTER 10 Personality©2000 The New Yorker Collection fromCartoonbank.com. Robert Mankoff. All rights reserved.Sublimation In Freud’s view, creative orproductive behaviors represent the rechannelingof sexual energy, or libido—an egodefense mechanism he termed sublimation.Freud believed that civilization’s greatestachievements are the result of the sublimationof instinctual energy into sociallyacceptable activities. Later personalitytheorists criticized Freud’s refusal to considercreativity a drive in its own right.“Look, call it denial if you like, butI think what goes on in my personal lifeis none of my own damn business.”parental and societal values, the superego evaluates the acceptability of behavior andthoughts, then praises or admonishes. Put simply, your superego represents your conscience,issuing demands “like a strict father with a child” (Freud, 1926). It judges yourown behavior as right or wrong, good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable. And, shouldyou fail to live up to these morals, the superego can be harshly punitive, imposing feelingsof inferiority, guilt, shame, self-doubt, and anxiety. If we apply Freud’s terminologyto the twins described in the chapter Prologue, Kenneth’s superego was clearly strongerthan Julian’s.The Ego Defense MechanismsUnconscious Self-DeceptionsThe ego has a difficult task. It must be strong, flexible, and resourceful to successfullymediate conflicts among the instinctual demands of the id, the moral authorityof the superego, and external restrictions. According to Freud (1923), everyoneexperiences an ongoing daily battle among these three warring personality processes.When the demands of the id or superego threaten to overwhelm the ego, anxietyresults (Freud, 1915b). If instinctual id impulses overpower the ego, a person may actimpulsively and perhaps destructively. Using Freud’s terminology, you could say thatJulian’s id was out of control when he stole from the church and tried to rob the drugstore.In contrast, if superego demands overwhelm the ego, an individual may sufferfrom guilt, self-reproach, or even suicidal impulses for failing to live up to the superego’smoral standards (Freud, 1936). Using Freudian terminology again, it is probablysafe to say that Kenneth’s feelings of guilt over Julian were inspired by his superego.If a realistic solution or compromise is not possible, the ego may temporarilyreduce anxiety by distorting thoughts or perceptions of reality through processesthat Freud called ego defense mechanisms (Freud, 1946; Freud, 1915c). Byresorting to these largely unconscious self-deceptions, the ego can maintain anintegrated sense of self while searching for a more acceptable and realistic solutionto a conflict between the id and superego.The most fundamental ego defense mechanism is repression (Freud, 1915a,1936). To some degree, repression occurs in every ego defense mechanism. In simpleterms, repression is unconscious forgetting. Unbeknownst to the person, anxietyproducingthoughts, feelings, or impulses are pushed out of conscious awareness intothe unconscious. Common examples include traumatic events, past failures, embarrassments,disappointments, the names of disliked people, episodes of physical painor illness, and unacceptable urges.Repression, however, is not an all-or-nothing psychological process. As Freud(1939) explained, “The repressed material retains its impetus to penetrate into consciousness.”In other words, if you encounter a situation that is very similar to oneyou’ve repressed, bits and pieces of memories of the previous situation may beginto resurface. In such instances, the ego may employ other defense mechanisms thatallow the urge or information to remain partially conscious.This is what occurs with the ego defense mechanism of displacement. Displacementoccurs when emotional impulses are redirected to a substitute object or person,usually one less threatening or dangerous than the original source of conflict(Freud, 1946). For example, an employee angered by his supervisor’s unfair treatmentmay displace his hostility onto family members when he comes home fromwork. He consciously experiences anger but directs it toward someone other thanits true target, which remains unconscious.Freud (1930) believed that a special form of displacement, called sublimation, islargely responsible for the productive and creative contributions of people and even ofwhole societies. Sublimation involves displacing sexual urges toward “an aim otherthan, and remote from, that of sexual gratification” (Freud, 1914). In effect, sublimationchannels sexual urges into productive, socially acceptable, nonsexual activities.The major defense mechanisms are summarized in Table 10.1. In Freud’sview, the drawback to using any defense mechanism is that maintaining theseself-deceptions requires psychological energy. As Freud (1936) pointed out regardingthe most basic defense mechanism, repression does not take place “on a single occasion”