ABSTRACT
In the psycho-semiotic view, "symptom-formation" may be translated as concrete proto-symbol formation, i.e., one-dimensional identification: a pseudo-conceptualization due to an experience of extremely narrow perspective. Peirce's pragmatic philosophy and his Doctrine of Signs came to the very brink of psychology where he was forced to stop. It is for this reason that his ideas offer a means for unification of the logical with the psychological through psychoanalysis. The term sign is used genetically for the vehicle of representation for which Peirce also uses the somewhat awkward representamen. The term symbol is intended to be restricted to those signs whose meaning is conveyed abstractly by codes which are generally thought of as derived by the dictates of social convention, chiefly, but not entirely, linguistic. Peirce's semiotic triad of Object, Sign, and Interpretant is a model of logical thought structure which is not concerned with psychological aberrations.
