ABSTRACT
In the realm of affective experience, the boundary separating mind and body originates in intersubjective situations closely similar to those in which the division between conscious and unconscious takes forms. The boundary thereby established between mind and body is such that the experiential territory covered by the body remains comparatively large, encompassing affect states that ordinarily come to be experienced as more prominently mental. Concretization can mediate the relationship between mind and body in a number of ways. One such relationship is illustrated by certain sexual enactments, in which intense bodily experiences are relied on to restore or sustain a precarious, fragmentation-prone psychological organization. The intersubjective situations giving rise to conversion symptoms may be quite similar to those in which some psychosomatic states occur, wherein the verbal articulation of affective experience is prevented because it would threaten a needed tie. Unlike psychosomatic states, however, which follow presymbolic pathways of affect expression, conversion symptoms are mediated by symbolic processes.
