Article
The Importance of Symbol-Formation in the Development of the Ego
A paper Melanie Klein read at the Oxford Congress of 1929 and published in the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis in 1930. Klein argues that anxiety is what drives symbol formation: the child's sadistic phantasies against the mother's body make the objects of that body feared, so the child's interest shifts to new objects that come to stand for them, and in this way the child's world grows wider. She illustrates the argument with the analysis of "Dick", a four-year-old boy whose excessive early defence against his own sadism had all but stopped symbol formation and, with it, his relation to reality.
Main ideas
- Anxiety is the driving force of symbol formation.
- Sadistic phantasies against the mother's body make its objects dreaded, and interest moves to new objects that symbolise them, widening the child's world.
- In the case of "Dick", an excessive early defence against sadism nearly halted symbol formation and the child's contact with reality.
What it shows
- 1930
Melanie Klein developed Symbolism
Through the analysis of Dick, Klein argues that anxiety about sadistic phantasies drives the child to move its interest from the mother's body to ever new objects. Symbol formation is therefore the basis of the child's relation to the outside world, and of its sublimations.