In clinical psychoanalytic work, one often encounters psychic material that is devoid of form or shape. It is often manifest as concrete somatic sensations at the border of the body and mind. At the same time, it is a primitive, body-related self-experience that functions as a background, an essential requirement for more developed, differentiated self-experiences.

Bi-logic describes a theoretical method with which one can outline these early, partially formless processes and states of mind. This paper includes an overview of the main hypotheses of Matte Blanco's bi-logical vertex, which focuses on the extreme symmetrization of mental phenomena that emanate from the body. Clinical vignettes illustrate ways in which analysis can gradually bring forth a form from the previously formless, dissociated, traumatic material, drawing it into the range of the conscious mind. In this way, the capacity for thinking and reflection increases and the early elements of self-experience are enlivened.