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I would like to relate some of what has been observed in infant development, particularly in regard to primitive perceptual and affective experiences to one of Matte-Blanco's chief characteristics of the unconscious process, symmetrization. In the course of doing that I will highlight what I believe are major clinical implications.
Daniel Stern (1985) has written extensively on infant perceptual and affective development. A key perceptual capacity of even neonatal life is what has been called “amodal perception.” This is, according to Stern, the innate capacity of the newborn to transfer perceptual experience from one sensory mode to another. Thus, the breast that is suckled is innately recognized as the breast that is seen. Likewise, the infant is able to know that the tender voice he hears is the same as the gentle hands that he feels holding him.
Quite apart from Stern, Matte-Blanco's focus has been on the workings of the unconscious. According to Matte-Blanco (1988), symmetrization is where all subjects are treated as interchangeable with objects. For example, “Peter is the father of John” becomes equivalent to, “John is the father of Peter.” Furthermore, through forming mental “sets” the mind groups items on the basis of a similarity. Then, through symmetrization all the items within the group become equivalent or homogeneous. This can be observed in prejudice, where a group is identified according to a set, such as skin color or ethnicity. Then, all individuals within the group are symmetrized so that “they” are all alike.