ABSTRACT
From the moment when an important place is given in the organization of narcissism and in a more general way in the organization of the psychic life of the subject, it is necessary to take stock of the function of the object in particular in the process of symbolization/desymbolization. This is what this chapter is about. A return on the psychological needs of the child and what he expects from his environment in order to be able to develop is thus necessary. Initially, psychoanalysis focused mainly on the physical care needs of the child, and it was only later that it recognized the imperative need for an adequate response to the child’s psychological needs, that it was able to identify these needs and try to understand how they could be met. In the history of the analysis of the process of symbolization, the central place was first given to the father and to what was theorized as the function of the third party. But, under the preponderant influence of Anglo-Saxon authors, W.R. Bion and D.W. Winnicott in particular, the question of the mother in the development of symbolization had to be asked as well. It was then necessary to identify how this symbolic function of the mother operated, what processes were implemented. This chapter takes up these different issues in detail and proposes hypotheses and models on what may be decisive in the mother’s place in the acquisition of the symbolic function.
