ss itself in indirect ways. Sublimation says: "If
I cannot recreate myself in the person of a child, I will recreate
myself in making a bridge, or a picture, or a social settlement,--or a
pudding." It says: "If I cannot have my own child to love, I will
adopt an orphan-asylum, or I will work for a child-labor law." It
merely lets one thing stand for another and transfers all the passions
that belong to the one on to the other, which is the same thing as
saying that it gives vent to its original desire by means of symbolic
expression.

=The Wrong Kind of Symbolism.= A nervous disorder is an unfortunate
choice of symbols. Instead of spiritualizing an innate impulse, it
merely disguises it. The disguise takes a number of forms. One of the
commonest ways is to act out in the body what is taking place in the
soul. The woman with nausea converted her moral disgust into a
physical nausea, which expressed her distress while it hid its
meaning. The girl who was tired of seeing her work, and the man who
wanted to avoid seeing his wife chose a way out which physically
symbolized their real desire. A dentist once came to me with a
paralyzed right arm. He had given up his office and believed that he
would never work again. It turned out that his only son had just died
and that he was dramatizing his soul-pain by means of his body. His
subconscious mind was saying, "My good right arm is gone," and saying
it in its own way. Within a week the arm was playing tennis, and ever
since it has been busy filling teeth. There were, of course, other
factors leading up to the trouble, but the factor which determined its
form was the sense of loss which acted itself out through the body.

Sometimes, as we have seen, the disguise takes another form. Instead
of conversion into a physical symptom, it lets one idea stand for
another and displaces the impulse or the emotion to the substitute
idea. The girl with the impulse to take drugs fooled her conscience by
letting the drug-taking idea stand for the idea of conception. The
girl with the fear of contamination carried the disguise still
farther by changing the desire into fear,--a very common subterfuge.

=The Case of Mrs. Y.= There came to me a short time ago a little woman
whose face showed intense fright. For several months she had spent
much of the time walking the floor and wringing her hands in an agony
of terror. In the night she would waken from her sleep, shaking with
fear; soon she woul