Concept
Idealization
The mental exaltation of an object, or of the self, which is then felt to be perfect although its nature is unchanged. Freud (1914) set it apart from sublimation: idealization acts on the object, sublimation on the drive. Klein made it an early defence that keeps an all-good object apart from a persecuting one.
- Broader concept
- Defense
- Introduced by
- Sigmund Freud
- Key works
- 3
- Related
- Sublimation
introduced by
- Sigmund Freud 1914 Freud speaks of an idealization of the drive in the perversions in 1905. In 1914 he defines idealization as a process acting on the object, possible with ego-libido as with object-libido, as in the sexual overvaluation of the loved object, and he ties it to the forming of the ego ideal.
diverged into
- Sublimation 1914 Freud separates the two: sublimation turns the drive toward a non-sexual aim, while idealization exalts the object without changing it. The ego ideal demands sublimation but cannot enforce it, so a lofty ideal is no proof that sublimation has succeeded.
developed by
- Melanie Klein 1946 Klein makes idealization one of the earliest defences of the paranoid-schizoid position. Tied to splitting, it exaggerates the good aspects of the breast as a safeguard against fear of the persecuting breast.