Simbolizzazione e sue relazioni con la realtà psichica e la realtà esterna, Harold Bloom

Symbolization is a precondition for personality development and the evolution of human society and culture. Higher levels of symbolic organization permit thought, language, and complex affective expression. The capacity for symbolic representation of both self and nonself reciprocally influences the differentation of subjective fantasy and obyective reality, and emerges during the phase of transitional phenomena. The fort-da game illustrates the symbolic representation of the absent object and the symbolic manipulation of the presence and absence of the object. Symbolic processes may be viewed on a spectrum from primary process to the most abstract symbolization. Unconscious symbolism has its significant meaning outside of conscious awareness; is unlearned, universal,and is found in the language, miths,jokes and dreams of all peoples. Serving gratification and defense, symbols preserve the body image and primary objects against loss. Symbolization is related to both the inner and outer wordl and to links between psychic reality and external reality. The body surface was probably the locus of initial symbolic representation of self and object, extended to other surface, e.g. the Cro-Magnon cave wall. Preferred idioms and metaphors convey preconscious and unconscious conflict derivatives with a core of unconscious, psychoanalytic symbolism. Clarification and interpretation in the analytic process are based upon symbolic verbal and nonverbal communication, and a clinical example is given of a patient’s play with metaphor and symbol.