ABSTRACT
The identification of one object with another is described as the forerunner of symbolism, and Melanie Klein, both in her paper "Infant Analysis" and in the "The Importance of Symbol Formation in the Development of the Ego", says that symbolism is the basis of all talents. Ernest Jones describes the process of identification that underlies symbol formation as being not only the result of the forbidding forces, but also a result of the need to establish a relation to reality. The frame marks off the different kind of reality that is within it from that which is outside it. In psychoanalysis it is the existence of this frame that makes possible the full development of that creative illusion that analysts call the transference. The central idea underlying psychoanalytic technique is that it is by means of this illusion that a better adaptation to the world outside is ultimately developed.
