Back to Table of Contents
Psychosomatic symptoms or acting out can result from a disconnection between the systems, either secondary to a deficit or through defensive functioning (e.g., somatization). Triggering of a traumatic memory that is not linked to the symbolic system can lead to subsymbolic somatic and arousal patterns that are not symbolically processed, giving rise to psychosomatic symptoms, panic disorder, or phobias. However, unlike the models of Klein and Bion, where internal conflicts around aggression are central, Bucci's (1997, 2011) focus is primarily on the role of traumatic experience triggering a dissociative response and impaired referential activity. VI. C. Multi-Disciplinary Therapy of Children with Severe Symbolization Deficits: “Psychomotor Therapy with Psychoanalytic Intervention” Emma Ponce de León Ponce de León [Ponce de León, Bernardi, Gutiérrez-Sánchez dirs.] (2016) describes the subjective psychic constitution as a model of symbolization that takes place between two poles: the body; and a transforming and containing relation, of "symbolizing" quality. She focuses on the process prior to symbolization itself, the pre-symbolic stage, in which primitive representational systems are formed, and somatic registers begin to reach the psychic domain. Although language preceeds the subject, the focus is on the process of subjective appropriation. Before his birth, the infant is contained by the mother, and his experiences in utero constitute the a priori of the new relation between the baby and the mother. Although only hypothetical origins of the constitutive processes of the psyche can be established, it is known that in the beginning, the baby experiences somatic excitations, emotions, and motor discharges. This gives rise to sensory-tonic-emotional engrams, a form of primitive somato-psychic register that can be designated as "body memories", which remains undifferentiated and always ready to discharge. They could be compared with Freud’s perceptual signs as traces in the body. Ponce de León draws on the philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1964), who described the "inter-corporeal" bond, which assigns various meanings (due to its symbolizing quality) and progressively turns somatic energy into psychic energy. In Ponce de Leon’s theorizing, it is in the way of such ‘inter-corporeal bond’ that the bodily registers give rise to the psychic register, although there is always a remainder that fails to reach the psyche. The bond either allows or doesn’t allow the connection between the engrams and the emotions that are generated. If these emotions are not processed and transformed, they remain available for bodily discharge, awaiting eventual transformation. When emotions are signified within the bond, a new spiral of transformation into shared affections is produced. Ponce de León considers “proto-representations”, described by Monique Pinol-Douriez (1971-1972; 1984), as a perceptive amalgam marked by the affect, which occurs in the closest bodily proximity and with a predominance of the tactile over the visual, since the latter is still
913
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online