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Building on Greenacre (1969, 1970), Langer (1930) and Piaget (1929), Galenson considers nonverbal communication as manifest in body language as well as acting out, and relates such forms of communication to a preverbal form of thinking. Reminded of Furth and Vernon’s demonstration that severe or total language deficiency may be present without loss of the capacity for thought and symbolization, she posits that early action patterns devoid of imagery gradually give rise to representational thought in which imagery is present. Galenson attempts to define the structural or organizational properties of play in terms of modes derived from body function. These patterns have 'vectorial properties', or organizing principles, such as direction, force, balance, rhythm, and ‘enclosingness’. Clinical examples illustrate a method of categorizing and recording the derivatives of body sensations and affects through a structural or organizational frame of reference. In contrast to the symbolic richness of the artist's work, and the wide variety in the play of normal children, there is clinical evidence that the symbolic play of emotionally disturbed children tends to be narrow in variety, richness, and originality. There is also a greater proportion of direct expression of impulse by way of bodily movement. Such impoverishment in early symbolic play may result in restriction of the routes available for the expression of bodily sensations and the mental processes connected with them – a restriction that may finally eventuate in certain forms of acting out and other pathological behavior. IV. L. Infant Research of Beatrice Beebe and Frank Lachmann Using recent evidence for early representational capacity, Beebe and Lachmann (1988, 2002) propose that early interaction structures are represented in a presymbolic form in the first year and provide the basis for emerging symbolic forms of self- and object representations. They specifically address the nature of the interrelatedness and the patterns of mutual regulation between mother and infant in the early months of life, illustrating matching and derailed exchanges, based on microanalyses of film and videotape. They suggest that the dynamic process of reciprocal adjustments is the substance of the earliest interactive representations. What is represented is an emergent dyadic phenomenon, which cannot be described on the basis of either partner alone. IV. M. Symbolization in the Analytic Process Norbert Freedman and Jared Russell (2003) define Symbolization as “the linking of experiences from distinct spheres of the mind, where one represents the other”, and “a mental quality demanded by analytic treatment, regardless of theoretical orientation… a part of a common ground” (p. 39). Upon review of various forms of symbolization occurring in a psychoanalytic discourse, Freedman and Russell introduce a hypothesis of ‘incremental symbolization’. They delineate and exemplify four symbolic forms that are met in psychoanalytic discourse: (1) incipient symbolization; (2) discursive symbolization; (3)
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