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special focus on a symbolizing function, so that interpretations can be experienced as meaningful. This understanding has generated changes in the technique’s theory on a global scale, one that is clearly present in the Latin American thought.
V. Cab. The Emerging Definition of Symbolization in Latin America: Out of the above formulations, an inclusive definition of the multifaceted concept of symbolization has emerged in Latin American psychoanalytic literature: A process that starts at the beginning of a human being’s life, which is essential for subjectivation to occur. In the process of symbolization, the first steps are weaved with early development processes. The ability to symbolize is innate, as Freud already maintained, but the process only occurs in the presence-absence of a good enough mother (or father) who lends her/his baby the symbolizing function in the framework of early interactions . The psychic mechanisms that operate in these early relationships are conceptualized in different ways according to post- Freudian theories, which are often divergent. When conditions are ‘good enough,’ a complex intra-psychic world of representations, thoughts, emotions in constant interaction with internal objects, and internal relations of symbolization is organized. This world finds its reorganization in the oedipal phase. It acquires the characteristic of double meaning – the manifest and the latent – that goes beyond naming and describing. Reorganizations and redefinitions in the intra-psychic world can occur throughout life, in interaction with other people, in the symbolic field, remaining open to the new. Dreams are the via regia to apprehend the symbolic intrapsychic world. Their operation is shown throughout their intra-psychic processes such as displacement, condensation, and the process of figurability, driven by desire. The human psyche is enriched by its continuous insertion into symbolic systems. This symbolic world refers to linguistic expressions with their metaphors, and myths, in the scientific, and cultural areas. Failures in the process of symbolization and de-symbolization are of interest for the understanding of patients in psychoanalytic treatments. V. Cb. From Theory to Clinic Drawing on the above authors and her own clinical practice, Jordán-Quintero (2015, 2016) considers it essential to assess whether the process from the pre-symbolic to the achievement of symbolization is progressing satisfactorily. Some multi-theoretical indicators of such process are proposed: 1. The establishment of a transitional space (Winnicott); 2. The Mirror Stage (Lacan): between six months and a year and a half, the child sees himself in a mirror and joyfully assumes his identity, his gestalt; he is one in front of the mirror, where the body image is confirmed or reconfirmed; 3. The game of fort-da (Freud) shows the development of the mother’s presence-absence representation; and through the use of the words "fort" and "da", the beginning of language development, as well as the incipient presence of
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