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symbolization, studies of unrepressed unconscious as a generator of complex symbolic codes and messages, and expansion of clinical psychoanalytic armamentarium of the steps from sensory motor and visceral registers towards symbol formation. Across all psychoanalytic orientations, there is a growing emphasis on the developmentally earliest or regressively traumatically altered non-repressed ‘ protosymbolic’, tenuously symbolic, or variously conceptualized non-symbolic area, and an attendant reappraisal within the context of the interpretative and non-interpretative participation of the analyst, including countertransference enactments, holding, containing, and/or transformational-interpretative approaches. To the degree that the emphasis is on bringing this dimension into the interpretative discourse, it constitutes the expansion of the intra-psychic symbol-formative processes. The way that this pre-symbolic or non-symbolic experiential domain enters into the analytic process and how it is transformatively analytically engaged is a mater of ongoing debate and scholarship. In Europe , the question of symbol and symbol formation has been omnipresent in the psychoanalytic thought since Freud’s first definitions of the terms. Symbolism refers to the mode of representation of the thing/person symbolised, while symbolisation describes the process of creating meanings through making a link between the two. It is generally agreed that the existence of a symbol implies its separateness, and difference, from the thing/object that is symbolised. In the European psychoanalytic schools of thought, symbolisation is described as both a defensive but also a creative process that enables exploration of the inner and external realities and the capacity for reparation and, in effect, sublimation. The symbol therefore represents internal conflicts, as well as new ideas and new connections being made, allowing at the same time for processes of separation and individuation. Inability to symbolise indicates serious psychopathology, developmental deficits, and leads to inhibitions of general functioning and creative capacities. Different levels of symbolisation (or degrees of transition between the object and its representation/substitute) have been described – from the more concrete symbolic representation, e.g. symbolic equation, through images and ideograms (perceptual representations), to complex verbal thoughts and conceptualisations, and objects of art. More recently the emphasis has been put on the capacity for dreaming, play and symbol formation which are considered more important than symbols themselves – especially those highly abstract symbols. Processes of symbolisation are closely linked to differentiation: ego and the other; unconscious/conscious; inner and external reality. In addition, the interpersonal/relational context of the development of symbol and the capacity to symbolise, through linking/connecting, and transformation, has been more universally supported. Although symbol and symbolisation are universally considered as closely related to psychic functioning and structure, the emphasis is put differently by different psychoanalytic
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