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Part I appeared in Volume XV, No. 2. Part II in Volume XVI, No. 1. Part III completes article.
Process is primary and being aware is a unitary process, said Krishnamurti. He also said, “We shall see, as we go into it more deeply, that we begin to dream, that we begin to throw up all kinds of symbols which we translate as dreams. Thus we open the door into the hidden which becomes the known; but to find the unknown, we must go beyond that door—surely that is our difficulty.”52 As analysts we are interested in dreams, which I refer to as the dreaming process,59 to help our patients open doors into the hidden, so that they can go on to open other doors to the unknown, which is reality. But to understand not only dreams and fantasies but many other aspects of human integrating, it is essential to understand the symbolizing process which is an aspect of integrating, of the unitary process of being aware.
Cassirer, a pioneer in studying the symbolic process, said in his “Essay on Man”, “Instead of defining man as an animal rationale, we should define him as an animal symbolicum. By so doing we can designate his specific difference, and we can understand the new way open to man—the way to civilization.”60 With a knowledge of the symbolizing process whole new vistas open to us. It is in the nature of human beings to symbolize, of which abstracting, concretizing, perceiving, conceptualizing, emoting and conating are part processes.61 To abstract can be used in two senses, one in the sense of postulating and the other as considering certain immediately apprehended factors apart from their immediately apprehended context, which is the sense I shall use it in at this point. To abstract means to take out of, to select out certain attributes—e.g. from an apple its color, shape, taste and so on, from which we arrive at a concretization of all these attributes into a concept of an apple or appleness. Concept formation is one step in theory formulation. The above is a concept by intui