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Freud, continues to consider that psychoanalytic practice and the analysis of transference cannot simply be envisaged in the 'here and now' of the session, but must always also maintain the testimonies and rejections of past experiences in the latent thought of the psychoanalytic listening. These issues remain a standing debate and controversy on the international psychoanalytic scene. There is still a point to be addressed in symbolization, that of its relationship with reflexivity. Based on W.R. Bion's "A Theory of Thinking" (1962), André Green and Jean Luc Donnet (Donnet and Green 1973) propose to underline the importance not only of psychic representation, but of the necessity of a representation of the activity of representation, or "representation of representation", or of its absence "representation of the absence of representation". The concept thus emphasizes reflexivity and in this way partly replaces that of consciousness; it opens up the question of the forms of reflexivity when they concern non- verbal forms of language. If one considers that symbolization is a form of representation that contains a clue that it is indeed a representation and not a perception, then the question becomes that of "the symbolization of symbolization" and it splits into symbolization of "primary" symbolization and symbolization of "secondary" symbolization. For the latter, the forms are obvious and easily accessible because verbal language is full of examples: e.g., I imagine, I represent myself, I think, etc. As far as the primary forms of symbolization are concerned, the question is more complex. Historically, it has been illuminated by the work of Milner (1977), who describes the facilitating function of ‘pliable medium’ objects in the formation of unconscious symbols of the (re)presentations of things. From this is deduced a necessary "pliable medium" function present in the mode of communication, which confers a ‘symbolic function’ onto the primary objects. III. C. Italian Contributions The Italian psychanalyst Eugenio Gaddini (1989), whose work had dealt mainly with pre-symbolic proto-mental functioning, considered that from birth onwards, there is an initially fragmentary mental sense of the body, gradually organizing itself into the first sense of self. From six months onwards, this archaic sense of self becomes reflected through a visual image, thus being the first representation of the body. This, following the squiggle phase, will be expressed graphically by the child as a circle, ‘i.e., the child’s first creative expression.’ This round image will be drawn by the child by the end of the second year of life, when the sense of self becomes conscious to the developing ego. The circle is thus linked to Winnicott’s idea of a transitional object (Winnicott 1953) which is not part of the bodily self, but has been ‘found’, invented by the child before there is a fully structured ego. The circle is thus for Gaddini, ‘first and foremost a symbol’. This circular image will gradually be expanded into becoming a head and eventually, the well-known doll- like figure symbolically representing a person.
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