Unthinkability and psychosomatic symptoms
Neri, C.
International Journal of Psychoanalytic PsychoTherapy 10: 599-613
1984
ISSN/ISBN: 0091-0600 PMID: 6210261 Document Number: 226523
W. R. Bion (1952) has pointed out a connection between alterations in the development of the "apparatus for thinking thoughts" and psychosomatic symptoms. Many authors have used this insight, from their own points of view, as a basis for describing this deficiency in thought and in the capacity to formulate images related to the development of psychosomatic symptoms (Krystal & McDougall 1979; Segal, 1950, 1958). This paper applies this hypothesis to a clinical case in which special emphasis is given to the symbolic deficiency, its effect on transference-countertransference, and its relation to falsification, "hyposymbolization," and to a specific phenomenon that could be called "hypersymbolization," in which many meanings are embodied in the same symbol.