Reinvented sublimation

Journal title PSICOTERAPIA PSICOANALITICA
Author/s Giuseppe Civitarese
Publishing Year 2022 Issue 2022/2 Language Italian
Pages 23 P. 21-43 File size 246 KB
DOI 10.3280/PSP2022-002002
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

The theory of sublimation summarizes the Freudian theory of art. Although it is so intuitive that it has passed into popular culture, it has always been considered a weak theory. In this article, the author’s working hypothesis is that it is possible to "reinvent" it from the aes-thetic theory of the sublime. In fact, sublimation and sublime both ex-press the idea of the subject’s ascent to the highest peaks of humanity. Both are theories of man’s spiritual elevation and "moral" achievement, and both attempt to explain the mystery of aesthetic experience. What the aesthetics of the sublime helps us to see more clearly and distinctly is that it is an inherently intersubjective process. At stake in psychic growth is always the weaving of new bonds, which, however, are also affective bonds. Comparison of the two theories may yield sug-gestive insights into the social and aesthetic (i.e., based on bodily sen-sations) constitution of the subject at birth: at the starting point of the process of subjectivation, and then thereafter throughout life (one nev-er stops "being born"). Thus reinterpreted, the concept of sublimation, a metaphor Freud borrows from chemistry, where it designates the transition of a substance from solid to aeriform state, wonderfully points to the process of ascending from chaos to order, concrete to symbolic, body to spirit. The sublimation-as-reconciliation with the other, that takes place simultaneously on the plane of verbal thought and bodily intentionality, can then serve as a model of therapeutic action

Keywords: sublimation, sublime, intercorporeality, field theory, creativity, at-one-ment.

  1. Binswanger L. (1944). Il caso Ellen West. Milano: Bompiani, 1973.
  2. Bion W.R. (1961). Esperienze nei gruppi. Roma: Armando.
  3. Bion W.R. (1962a). The Psycho-Analytic Study of Thinking. Int J Psycho-Anal, 43: 306-310.
  4. Bion W.R. (1962). Apprendere dall’esperienza. Roma: Astrolabio, 1988.
  5. Bion W.R. (1992). Cogitations. Roma: Armando.
  6. Cicero V. (2021). Tradurre Hegel. “Aufheben” come rilevare. Humanitas, 76: 287-299.
  7. Civitarese G (2012) La griglia e la pulsione di verità. Rivista di Psicoanalisi, 58: 335-360.
  8. Civitarese G. (2014). Bion and the Sublime: Roots of an Aesthetic Paradigm. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 95: 1059-1086. DOI: 10.1111/1745-8315.1226
  9. Civitarese G. (2016). On Sublimation. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 97: 1369-1392. DOI: 10.1111/1745-8315.12530
  10. Civitarese G. (2018). Soggetti sublimi. Esperienza estetica e intersoggettività in psicoanalisi. Milano-Udine: Mimesis.
  11. Civitarese G. (2019a). The Concept of Time in Bion’s “A Theory of Thinking”. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 100: 182-205. DOI: 10.1080/00207578.2019.157021
  12. Civitarese G. (2019b). The Birth of the Psyche and Intercorporeity. Fort Da, XXV: 6-25.
  13. Civitarese G. (2020). L’ora della nascita. Psicoanalisi del sublime e arte contemporanea. Milano: Jaca Book.
  14. Civitarese G. (2021a). Visioni sublimi e nascita della psiche: Il bello è solo l’inizio del tremendo. In Casali I., a cura di, L’anima e il sublime. Milano: Jaca Book, pp. 109-137.
  15. Civitarese G. (2021b). Intersubjectivity and the Analytic Field. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 69(5): 853-894. DOI: 10.1177/0003065121104478
  16. Civitarese G. (2021c). Simmetry and Asymmetry in the Psychoanalytic Process. Reply to commentaries. Journal of the American Psychoanalytical Association, 69(5): 921-936. DOI: 10.1177/0003065121104889
  17. Civitarese G. (2021d). Experiences in Groups as a Key to “Late” Bion. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 102: 1071-1096. DOI: 10.1080/00207578.2021.192704
  18. Civitarese G. (2022a). The Identity of the Terrible and Happiness: On the Sublime in Art and Psychoanalysis. Fort Da, 27: 7-31.
  19. Civitarese G. (2022b). Il nero nel rosso: Anish Kapoor e la sublimazione della carne. Anish Kapoor. Venezia: Marsilio, pp. 43-61.
  20. Civitarese G. (2022c). Contenere il contenitore: Il modello di Bion della relazione madre-bambino. Comunicare, 44: 21-28.
  21. Civitarese G. (2022d). Psychoanalytic Field Theory: A Contemporary Introduction, London: Routledge.
  22. Derrida J. (1972). Margini della filosofia. Torino: Einaudi.
  23. Freud S. (1895). Progetto di una psicologia. OSF 2.
  24. Girard M. (2010). Winnicott’s Foundation for the Basic Concepts of Freud’s Metapsychology? International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 91: 305-324.
  25. Grotstein J. (2004). The Seventh Servant: The Implications of a Truth Drive in Bion’s Theory of ‘O’. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 85: 1081-1101. DOI: 10.1516/002075704225948
  26. Hardimon M.O. (1994). Hegel’s social philosophy: the project of reconciliation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  27. Hegel (1807). La fenomenologia dello spirito. Torino: Einaudi, 2021.
  28. Lafont C. (2005). Hermeneutics. In Dreyfus H.L., Wrathall M.A. (eds.). A Companion to Heidegger. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 265-284.
  29. Laplanche J., Pontalis J.-B. (1967). Enciclopedia della psicoanalisi. Bari: Laterza, 1974.
  30. Meltzer D. (1986). Studi di metapsicologia allargata. Applicazioni cliniche del pensiero di Bion. Milano: Raffaello Cortina, 1987.
  31. Merleau-Ponty M. (1945). Fenomenologia della percezione. Milano: Bompiani, 2003.
  32. Merleau-Ponty M. (1964). Il visibile e l’invisibile. Milano: Bompiani, 2003.
  33. Ogden T.H. (2019). Ontological Psychoanalysis or “What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?”. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 88: 661-684. DOI: 10.1080/00332828.2019.165692
  34. Williams D. (2017). Language and Being: Heidegger’s Linguistics. New York: Bloomsbury.
  35. Winnicott D.W. (1945). Primitive Emotional Development. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 26: 137-143.

Giuseppe Civitarese, La sublimazione reinventata in "PSICOTERAPIA PSICOANALITICA" 2/2022, pp 21-43, DOI: 10.3280/PSP2022-002002