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DISCUSSION: Dr. Edward Joseph, while accepting the description of symbolization in terms of ego psychology, was of the opinion that this did not coincide with Jones's formulation that 'only what is repressed is symbolized; only what is repressed needs to be symbolized'. Joseph thinks of symbolization in much broader terms, including conscious as well as unconscious mechanisms. He suggested a genetic history for the process of symbolization in which there is a hierarchy ranging from the usual symbol, as we know it, to figures of speech and metaphor. He wondered whether Dr. Beres conceived of the imaginative process as a special form of the synthetic function of the ego, or whether he conceived of it as a process in itself which utilized various other mechanisms of the ego. He also asked whether Beres considered imagination genetically as something inherent in the apparatus which comes into play with the development and maturation of the necessary component ego functions, or as a process with its own earlier developmental phases.
Dr. David Rubinfine thought that although Dr. Beres' definition of imagination had the advantages of lucidity and precision, it suffered from an excessive and premature simplification. He called attention to the fact that the formulation omitted any distinction between imagination in particular and thought in general. He also disagreed with the idea that the capacity for forming mental representations developed rather late in the child. He stated that Piaget's experiments, which would substantiate such a formulation, took insufficient account of