You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Schimmel considers symbolization in terms of breaks and linkages. The capacity to symbolize is the capacity to establish a relation, that is, the capacity to accept a break or absence and the possibility of elaborating it through psychic work which produces and destroys symbols. Schimmel's hypothesis is that this function is rendered possible through the process of repression, since this is the mechanism that makes and unmakes such relations. She presents a theory of the development of the sense of separateness and distance between mother and child, based on the work of Melanie Klein, Hanna Segal, Bion, and Winnicott. In her view, the infant must have had the experience of holding and the good container (Bion) in order for a separateness and sense of reality to develop. The infant must develop the possibility of healing this distance through a psychic reality which is reliable and reassuring as well as open to information coming from the exterior. This function must be capable of being enriched by being brought into question. Not only is the good enough mother necessary to promote this mode of functioning, it is also necessary that this mother be repressed so that the mode of functioning may be organized around contents linked to adult sexuality, such as oedipal and castration themes.