Key Arguments

• Freud hypothesizes that when the object is surrendered, "Maybe it facilitates or enables for the Ego through this introjection, 58 which is a kind of regression 59 to the oral phase mechanism, the surrender of the object."
• He adds the stronger claim that "Maybe this identification overall is the condition under which the Id gives up its objects."
• He interprets this mechanism as a way for the ego to "master the Id and can deepen its relationship with it, but at the cost of far-reaching submissiveness to the Id’s experiences," indicating a double-edged mastery/submission.
• He provides the ego’s imagined rationale: "If the Ego takes up the object’s traits, it forces itself, so to speak, on the traits of the Id as the love object and tries to recoup the Id’s loss by saying: 'Look, you can also love me, I am so similar to the object.'"
• He explicitly characterizes the economic change: "The transformation of object-libido into narcissistic-libido, 61 which is happening here, openly brings with it an abandonment of the sexual aims, 62 a desexualization, 63 as well as a type of sublimation. 64"
• He raises the theoretical question "whether this is not the general road to sublimation, whether not all of the sublimation goes through the intercession of the Ego, which first transforms the sexual object libido into narcissistic, then perhaps goes to set a different objective. 65"

Source Quotes

57 If a sexual object should or must be given up, not infrequently Ego alteration occurs, which we must describe as the setting up of the object in the Ego, as in melancholia’s case, the circumstances surrounding this substitution are not yet known. Maybe it facilitates or enables for the Ego through this introjection, 58 which is a kind of regression 59 to the oral phase mechanism, the surrender of the object. Maybe this identification overall is the condition under which the Id gives up its objects.

Maybe it facilitates or enables for the Ego through this introjection, 58 which is a kind of regression 59 to the oral phase mechanism, the surrender of the object. Maybe this identification overall is the condition under which the Id gives up its objects. In any case, the process is, especially in early stages of development, very common and can enable the view that the Ego’s character is a precipitate of abandoned object-cathexes, and contains the history of these object choices.

In this case, the character alteration outlives the object cathexis and preserves it in a certain sense. Another point of view implies that this realization of an erotic object choice into an Ego alteration is also a way that the Ego masters the Id and can deepen its relationship with it, but at the cost of far-reaching submissiveness to the Id’s experiences. If the Ego takes up the object’s traits, it forces itself, so to speak, on the traits of the Id as the love object and tries to recoup the Id’s loss by saying: “Look, you can also love me, I am so similar to the object.”

Another point of view implies that this realization of an erotic object choice into an Ego alteration is also a way that the Ego masters the Id and can deepen its relationship with it, but at the cost of far-reaching submissiveness to the Id’s experiences. If the Ego takes up the object’s traits, it forces itself, so to speak, on the traits of the Id as the love object and tries to recoup the Id’s loss by saying: “Look, you can also love me, I am so similar to the object.” The transformation of object-libido into narcissistic-libido, 61 which is happening here, openly brings with it an abandonment of the sexual aims, 62 a desexualization, 63 as well as a type of sublimation.

If the Ego takes up the object’s traits, it forces itself, so to speak, on the traits of the Id as the love object and tries to recoup the Id’s loss by saying: “Look, you can also love me, I am so similar to the object.” The transformation of object-libido into narcissistic-libido, 61 which is happening here, openly brings with it an abandonment of the sexual aims, 62 a desexualization, 63 as well as a type of sublimation. 64 Yes, there arises the in-depth-treatment-worthy question as to whether this is not the general road to sublimation, whether not all of the sublimation goes through the intercession of the Ego, which first transforms the sexual object libido into narcissistic, then perhaps goes to set a different objective. 65 Whether this transformation may or may not have an effect on other instincts’ fates, for example, bringing about a separation of the various merged instincts, will occupy us later.

The transformation of object-libido into narcissistic-libido, 61 which is happening here, openly brings with it an abandonment of the sexual aims, 62 a desexualization, 63 as well as a type of sublimation. 64 Yes, there arises the in-depth-treatment-worthy question as to whether this is not the general road to sublimation, whether not all of the sublimation goes through the intercession of the Ego, which first transforms the sexual object libido into narcissistic, then perhaps goes to set a different objective. 65 Whether this transformation may or may not have an effect on other instincts’ fates, for example, bringing about a separation of the various merged instincts, will occupy us later. It is a digression from our goal and yet cannot be avoided, we must turn our attention for a moment to linger on the Ego’s object identifications.

Key Concepts

• Maybe it facilitates or enables for the Ego through this introjection, 58 which is a kind of regression 59 to the oral phase mechanism, the surrender of the object.
• Maybe this identification overall is the condition under which the Id gives up its objects.
• this realization of an erotic object choice into an Ego alteration is also a way that the Ego masters the Id and can deepen its relationship with it, but at the cost of far-reaching submissiveness to the Id’s experiences.
• If the Ego takes up the object’s traits, it forces itself, so to speak, on the traits of the Id as the love object and tries to recoup the Id’s loss by saying: “Look, you can also love me, I am so similar to the object.”
• The transformation of object-libido into narcissistic-libido, 61 which is happening here, openly brings with it an abandonment of the sexual aims, 62 a desexualization, 63 as well as a type of sublimation. 64
• whether this is not the general road to sublimation, whether not all of the sublimation goes through the intercession of the Ego, which first transforms the sexual object libido into narcissistic, then perhaps goes to set a different objective. 65

Context

Still in the first half of Chapter III, as Freud develops the economic and developmental implications of identification and connects them to sublimation theory and ego–id relations.