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absence dialectic to be paradoxal: to the extent that it unites and separates at the same time, and it “is located” in between. Rhythm plays a key role in the dialectic between the baby and the person who seeks to get closer to him. There is “an encounter of gaze, voice, body, movement”… “bringing together rhythmic elements that sensibly guide the encounter and disagreement” (p. 79). Rhythm includes the predictable and also the unpredictable, the surprising phenomena; in other words, continuity and discontinuity. An “asymmetric co-writing circuit” between the baby and her caregiver” develops. He describes the "Six paths of meaning" of the symbolization concept:
1. Relationship with a desire to separate. It is part of the history of becoming a subject, in which the subject only constitutes itself when separating from the other. 2. The interaction between presence and absence . It is the presence of a concrete object combined with the memory of the absence of a cathected object. 3. The use of aggressiveness to induce a cut, a rupture. He considers it a valid metaphor of the subjective constitution: without the use of some aggression, the separation from the other cannot be achieved. (This idea is based on the concept of the death drive as disintegrative (Green, 1999, p. 185)) 4. The cut from the object implies a division of the object itself, and this also implies a division of spaces (topics) (p. 86). 5. Symbolization is not possible without an experience of separation- displacement in space. Metaphorization – the displacement of one thing in another – is the axis of the multiple substitutions that constitute the basis of symbolization. 6. The usage of a “concrete object ” as witness of a relationship (p. 87).
Based on these points, he describes the fort-da game of Freud’s grandson (Freud, 1920, pp. 13-17, above) as an experience that symbolizes the intertwining of four figures, fundamental to the creation of psychic life: “rhythm, gaze, word, and play" (p. 90) and he asks himself: "can the baby carry on a process of intrapsychic elaboration work in the absence of the object, without having gone through some form of intersubjective encounter in symbolizing presence?” (p. 89). This description draws on Winnicott’s comments: "the boy's game had the meaning of message addressed to another, capable of linking and translating in presence. Transformation from the bodily act to a ludic symbol, by means of the psychic attention and verbalization (of the analyst)" (p. 91); "The other’s use of words and gaze become fundamental elements in order to establish the “as if” and the representational process, and for symbolization to take place" (p. 93).
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