ABSTRACT
The first point to make is that the Kleinian approach refers to Symbolism while the Lacanian mentions The Symbolic. Therefore one deal with the way the human psyche represents things by symbols, or gives a symbolic character to objects or acts, while the other refers to a theoretical construct within an analytical theory. Melanie Klein recognised the importance of symbolism, seeing it as essential for development. She considered child’s play as a symbolic expression of a sublimated activity. For Klein symbols are containers for meanings, and exist since the pre-verbal world. Lacan agrees that symbols are containers for meaning, but his point is that the container is more important than what it contains. Melanie Klein refers to symbolism as the result of an equation (its representative function) but takes into account clinically its representative function and its expressive side.
