Where the Id was, the Shared Ego must now be: The Acquisition of Symbolic Function, Language and Conscious*

The author contemplates the nature of symbolic function and reviews the most important theories on the topic, proposing developments of thought. While it has variously been argued that the symbols appearing in dreams and insanity are the same as those that occur in art, religion and folklore, symbolism has never been approached systematically. Freud came across symbolism during the 1910 to 1916 period, and he suggested it had an innate origin. Though psychoanalysis has analysed the nature of creativity, it hasn't outlined the process of developing and learning symbolism in the neonatal mind.

Recently, in infant observation and neuroscience, it has been argued that the newborn starts to learn symbolism from the moment he/she begins sharing a “hypercathectic” emotional state with the mother. Through maternal “hypercathexis” and identification, the newborn learns both the mechanism that creates symbols and the process of presentation, thus developing the working-through pathway that will form the preconscious, consciousness, and the sense of reality. Understanding the development of symbolism is greatly important for the treatment of severe pathologies and psychosis, which are likely caused by an altered development of symbolic functioning.