A Note on the Formation of Symbols

In a paper on 'The Ontogenesis of Symbols' Ferenczi drew attention in 1913 to the manner in which symbols, as distinguished from other modes of indirect representation, are formed. The similarity between a penis and a tree—to use Ferenczi's illustration—is at first perceived consciously; then, when the thought of the penis is repressed, its affect is displaced and re-appears in consciousness as an apparently inexplicable interest in the tree. The tree becomes a symbol in the psycho-analytical sense only when this process is completed.

According to this account, the symbolic equation was once present in consciousness: 'Originally penis and tree, penis and church-steeple, were consciously equated'. But this feature is certainly not involved in the formation of all symbols. A woman, for example, dreams of a gothic arch which turns out on analysis to be a symbol for the vagina; but it is not at all necessary that an arch should ever have consciously reminded her of the female organ. It might, however, be replied that she has at some earlier time been reminded of the vagina by a window, tunnel or other kind of opening; and since this has certain features in common with an arch, there has after all been some kind of original conscious equation. According to this contention it would follow that if an object x has never been consciously equated with a sexual object y, it can become a symbol of y only under the following conditions:—Further back, another object z, in some way similar to x, has been consciously equated with y. The repressed affect of y is then displaced on to x viâ the intermediate idea z, which itself remains unconscious.

Symbols can, doubtless, be formed in this way; but such an explanation is not always necessary. Cases exist where, though neither x, nor anything similar to or associated with x, has been consciously equated with y, the repressed affect of y is directly displaced on to x, which then becomes a symbol. It is proposed here to examine t