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He comes to postulate two complementary paths to understanding the formation of symbols, which are made up of the union of the signifiers and the signified. The first, called logical atomism, seeks to understand in detail how the basic elements, the pictograms, come together and are articulated to form more complex elements, the ideograms, which have the possibility of developing representations of affect, abstract concepts and more complex conceptualizations. These configurations are governed by ‘a relational logic’ that is the logic of dreams, the unconscious, transference and free association. Avzaradel defines pictogram according to Haroldo de Campos (1994), as: “the pictogram is definitely an icon; it is a painting, which by virtue of its own characteristics, relates in some way by similarity to the real, although this representative quality does not derive from slavish imitation, but from a differentiated configuration of relationships according to a selective and creative criterion.” (Campos, 1994, p. 48-49). For Avzaradel then, pictograms are the foundation of imagistic representational activity. The second approach necessary to understand symbols is that they can be vehicles that are not only denotative, but also expressive, constructed in the interrelationship between the subjectivities of the patient and the analyst, the mother and her baby. Here, Avzaradel draws, among others, on Hanna Segal (1982) who also points to their communicative function, and because they are the fruit of this interrelationship, the emotional charge can be expressed, giving them an often poetic presentation. This direction goes from the pre-linguistic to the linguistic world, yet it always begins with the apprehension of reality through sensory experiences, as already stated by Antonio Houaiss: “... so that the verbal form obtained can be a vector for ideas, emotions, sensations, intuitions, feelings,...” (Houaiss, 2005, p.14). Overall, Avzaradel theorizes the complex path(s) of how the world of all representations is formed, including progressive development of verbal thought, leading to the construction of words. Avzaradel emphasizes, that especially when psychoanalysts work with patients with significant areas of mental non-representation, the construction of verbal thought implies the development ad infinitum of signified and signifiers that not only carry the meanings but also enrich those meanings by giving them a color and the richness that characterizes the complexity of the symbolization process. It might be instructive to compare Avzaradel’s conceptulization of pictogram and the development of symbolization to Aulagnier (1975), who has outlined a theory on the genealogy of psychic representations. Aulagnier proposes making a distinction between what she calls the representation of the unconscious primary phantasy and a preceding form of representation, which she calls pictograms, linking this to the primal, i.e., the primordial psyche. She refers to pictograms as the permanent form of representations, which defies language and uses pictures of physical things as its exclusive material. It was the psychotics' speech that led her to the hypothesis about a form of psychic activity “foreclosed from the knowable, always and for every subject, and yet always at work, a representative background
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