ABSTRACT
The term `symbol formation' is used in psychoanalysis to denote a mode of indirect or ®gurative representation of a signi®cant idea, con¯ict or wish. The ability to move on from relating concretely to archaic objects to relating symbolically to substitute objects (symbols) is both a developmental achievement and a move made because of the anxieties involved in relating to primal objects. Klein extended the ideas of both Freud and Jones on symbols, showing in particular the symbolic signi®cance of play and how sublimation depends on the capacity to symbolise. Segal further developed Klein's theory of symbols, distinguishing between the symbol proper formed in the depressive position and a more primitive version, the symbolic equation, belonging to paranoid-schizoid functioning. In the symbolic equation, the symbol is equated with the thing symbolised.
