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Symbols, as used in dreams, daydreams, hallucinations, symptoms, prose narrative, rituals and religions, are products of intrapsychic conflict and inhibiting influences, between repressed impulses and repressing forces. An essential function of the symbol is to avoid simultaneously, total repression and total expression of primitive impulses (Arlow 1961; L. B. Boyer 1964).
Like the typical dream (Freud 1900: 241-96), some symbols have proved refractory to understanding. Fliess (:19-30) found stone, as a manifest element of dreams and fantasies, to constitute a symbol which in general defied comprehension. Nevertheless, Kestenberg (1956) and Sperling (1960) determined that stone can represent the phallus, feces and a baby, Stekel (1935: 394) stated it could stand for incest, and Sperling (1960) learned that stone could symbolize the inner genital of the small girl. Wilson (1963) studied dreams of eight analyzands and concluded “that stone at the deepest level in dreams symbolizes the tooth or teeth of the second oral libidinal phase,” the stage of psychosexual development which Abraham (1924: 398) designated “the most primitive form of sadism.
From the earliest days of their endeavors, psychoanalysts have used data supplied by other social scientists, particularly anthropologists, to understand the productions of their patients, and in an attempt to determine the psychological common denominators and differences among varying groups of mankind (L. B. Boyer 1964: 118-9). The present contribution continues that tradition. In it will be presented data related to Apache socialization, personality and mythology.1 Variations