Sublimation

Sublimation is an Awareness Reduction Mechanism. Sublimation is the redirection of awareness and energy towards inappropriate targets, because appropriate targets are threatening and abusive. For example, an adolescent angry at their father may, because the father will respond to their anger with more abuse, redirect their anger to weaker children at school, or their spouse at home.

Other Awareness Reduction Mechanisms

Avoidance, Denial, Displacement, Dissociation, Distortion, Distraction, Diversion, Gaslighting, Intellectualization, Internalization, Projection, Rationalization, Reaction Formation, Regression, Repression, Sublimation

Notes

Proper expression of negative emotional and/or psychic energies involves proper attachment. Anger at parents should be directed at, and expressed, at parents and not scapegoats. Similarly, the anger and resentment that one experiences as the result of economic exploitation at work should be directed at those who exploit and not one's spouse or children.

Footnotes

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