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Lacan’ s contributions to symbolization are the description of the mirror phase in early development and the theory of the symbolic order, one of the three areas of the psychic world. The symbolic order is the a cultural organization in which a child is born. Green highlights the importance of the symbolizing relationship with the mother, and its possible flaws like object bi-triangulation. His most important contribution on this topic is the symbolizing function of the analyst, always necessary but especially in the analysis of non neurotic patients and patients’ non-neurotic aspects. He theorizes the symbol is a construction achieved between the patient and the analyst: the third object. Roussillon defines primary symbolization not as an identity of perception, but as an identity of ideation. Early development continues to be the subject of numerous studies, some of these based on infant observation, and others on the study of clinical material of analytical processes. From these multiple sources, the following are important for the comprehension of the symbolization processes. Based on increasingly detailed descriptions of early mother-infant relationships, various sensory channels have been emphasized. For example, Winnicott’s holding and handling, Lacan’ s gaze function , Guerra’ s notion of rhythm , and many others. Steps in the symbolization process have also been correlated with stages of development, as in Kleinians’ model where the paranoid-schizoid position is related to the symbolic equation and achieved symbolization itself with the depressive position. Myrta Casas de Pereda , based on Lacan’s theory , relates a level of symbolization with "the imaginary" dimension (narcissistic) and another level with "the symbolic" (oedipal). This correlation can lead to confusion between failures in the symbolization process and normal phenomena expected in early phases of development. Therefore, the term pre-symbolic is more accurate for everything that takes place during normal development , before the psychic reorganization that occurs during the Oedipus complex; the use of terms such as asymbolic, symbolic equation, non-symbolic, de- symbolization should be used when referring to failures in the symbolization process or eventual regressions . Bearing in mind this differentiation between pre-symbolic and failures in the process is relevant in understanding the symbolization processes, which constitute the basis of the cultural area of the human being on one hand, as well as approaching failures that can be studied and comprehended, from the most varied expressions in the clinic of the analysands. (The cultural area is followed more specifically in the Inter-Disciplinary section VI below.) The inclination to understand early development failures, which manifest themselves in a wide spectrum of suffering and clinical conditions, especially in children or adults with non- neurotic psychic organizations, leads the analysts to investigate the symbolization process. Intense anxiety, resulting from an insufficient psychic integration, underlies these failures in the symbolization process. These anxieties have been termed ‘primitive agonies’ (Winnicott) or ‘nameless dread’(Bion). Traumatic situations that cannot be elaborated can also produce failures in psychic integration and, in turn, failures or regressions in the symbolization process. Treatment with this type of patient entails special challenges to the analyst in the transference- countertransference relationship. Rather than an interpretative function, these patients require
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