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the concepts of space and time, is evidenced; 4. Being able to play while enjoying, which demonstrates the capability of creating ‘illusion’ of the “as if”; 5. The development of verbal language with communicative intention; and 6. Achievement of latency, in which the archaic fantasies described by Klein are repressed. V. Cc. Contemporary Clinical Usage The concept of symbolization proved to be very useful for clinical psychoanalysis in Latin America. It highlights the importance of the symbolic function of each patient, in all its complexity. In human beings, multiple possibilities, levels, and modalities of symbolization coexist, according to the developmental stage, psychic structure and organization. The human psyche is in constant transformation, by means of resignifications and re-inscriptions in different psychic areas. This is the essence of symbolization. These resignifications and transcriptions take place in a privileged way within the framework of the analysand-analyst relationship, with the participation of what’s achieved as well as failures in terms of symbolization. Early failures in the symbolization process are easier to study in the framework of child analyses, as exemplified below (Jordán-Quintero 2015, 2016; Casas de Pereda 1996; Villareal 1998/99). – The most severe failure is when the world is taken only in its concrete meaning. For example, a child who cannot draw the rain because the paper gets wet (see Casas de Pereda). This type of failure – symbolic equation and lack of distinction between perception, presentation, and representation – can occur in autistic children and psychotic patients. – Somatization of a 3-year-old patient who was brought to analysis for fecal retention, having ruled out organic causes. During the analytic process, the patient represented her body image through a small boat with a hole in the bottom, which put it at risk of sinking. The symptom subsided when the analyst was able to understand and verbally convey this meaning, and the patient confirmed her understanding. – Language that expresses difficulty in the symbolization of himself as a male child: a 6- year-old boy, when he gets shot while playing, repeats " Je suis morte " [female expression of “I am dead”], and when the analyst corrects him: " mort because you are a boy, morte if you were me because I am a woman", then he repeats: "morte”. In adults, failures in the processes of symbolization are evidenced in various ways, e.g.: Freud mentioned the use of mnemic symbols as a symptom, Hanna Segal described symbolic equations, which are in contemporary psychoanalysis linked to the psychotic field, and Green related them to multiple phenomena in “The Work of the Negative”. They are also present in the operative functioning of psychosomatic patients; in the absence of dreams or the presence of self-state dreams (H. Kohut) in which the patient represents the state of his self, but does not symbolize it.
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