Art in Psychoanalysis

    The categorization of psychoanalytic thinking in art consists of four subtitles as symbolism, sublimation, creativity and biography, and autobiography; yet symbolism and sublimation are more into prominence for interpreting draperies in terms of their meaning through phantasy and death. 

    As a mental operation, symbolism took a really important part of psychoanalysis. The term ‘’symbol’’ derives from the Greek word sumbolon, which means the two parts ‘’added up’’ to a whole to identify something or someone and came to meaning in their present sense. Freud proposes that symbols are related to what they remind by their size, shape, or usage. Freud insisted that although there is a lot of several symbols, the objects and ideas that they symbolize are limited in number. This means that psychoanalytical symbols are restricted to the body and its functions, especially to the sexual ones, family members, birth, and death. 

    According to classical psychoanalytic drive theory, a sublimated instinct is the one that is redirected away from its sexual aim on to a cultural level, such as art, science, sports, and other social activities that are valued within the society. For instance, a baby’s instinct to play with feces might be turned into molding clay, finger-painting, creating art. Sublimation was the work of eros, which is a tendency toward creating units that have higher social value instead of repressing unacceptable desires. On the other hand, sublimation is a transformation of the infantile anxieties relating to the mother (caregiver) and the death drive too. It is the depressive position, which allows the creation of a new object to restore the lost object in unconscious phantasy and brings something new into the world.