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On Not Being Able to Symbolize
Author(s) -
Robinson Ken
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
british journal of psychotherapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.442
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1752-0118
pISSN - 0265-9883
DOI - 10.1111/bjp.12100
Subject(s) - psychology , psychoanalytic theory , intellect , apperception , object relations theory , intuition , psychoanalysis , relation (database) , epistemology , romance , context (archaeology) , cognitive science , cognitive psychology , philosophy , paleontology , database , computer science , biology
This paper explores ideas from M arion M ilner which the author has found helpful in conceptualizing work with a patient who felt tyrannized by her objects, terrified that she would be swallowed up by them never to re‐emerge. Her terror interfered with her capacity to symbolize. The paper looks at the concept of a bodily self and its creative engagement with the world especially in the form of fusion with the object. It places M ilner's theory in the larger context of psychoanalytic and neuroscientific thinking from F reud and W innicott to D amasio as well as relating it to philosophical and Romantic accounts of creative apperception and personal knowledge. Although confidentiality precludes a detailed account of the analysis, the author provides an outline of the gradual development of her capacity to symbolize alongside her growing sense of a continuous self. He further comments on her finding what Milner called ‘intuitive images’ to bridge intellect and intuition and to allow them to co‐exist peacefully. The patient brought drawings to sessions and the paper reflects on these as an index of change as well as on the importance of the process of creating them in relation to her anxiety over the tyranny of objects.