ABSTRACT
Depth psychology formulates a particular latent difficulty in human development: the insufficient development of the symbolic function, particularly notable in cases of deficient nurturing. Additionally the symbolic function can be impaired later in life, by trauma. Two directions for pathology can be noted. First, the experience that does not receive adequate symbolization may stay, to too great an extent for health, contained and carried by the body, for example in a typical posture. (Bear in mind that the meanings given by our culture to experience, and that we have constructed during a life span, to some extent stay encoded in our body.) The pathology of ‘alexithymia’ consists of the inability to recognize and describe feelings, difficulty in distinguishing between emotional states and bodily sensations, and the inability to fantasize (Gelder et al. 1989: 410). Second, the pathology as exhibited in schizophrenia, in which the symbolic is experienced as concrete/real, as in ‘my neighbour is planning to kill me’ rather than ‘it feels as if my neighbour is planning to kill me’.
