In this article, the author examines bodily symptoms attributed to psychic mediating factors in the light of a psychoanalytic model of affect and symbolization. He uses clinical material from a consultation-liaison setting and a psychoanalytic treatment to illustrate how the model might help us understand different bodily symptoms as manifestations of different degrees of failure in the psychic elaboration of affect. On a more personal note, Åårelå adds that this newly acquired conceptual tool can be used in attempting to understand some of his own experiences during his twenty years of work in the psychiatry section of a general hospital.