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The rationale for shifting from theorising to model making has been pleaded at some length in The Kleinian Development and I will not repeat these arguments. In brief it seems clear that psycho-analysis, as a method for studying the workings of the human mind, is essentially a descriptive science and its field of study is phenomenologically infinite by its very nature. That is, the range of phenomena which this method is peculiarly suited to study by means of the transference is that embraced by the capacity of the mind to form symbols for the purpose of representing the meaning of emotional experiences so that they may be stored as memory (rather than held as recall), used for thinking (rather than merely being manipulated by computation and logical operations), and transformed into a variety of symbolic forms for communication of ideas (rather than being transmitted as bits of information). If this symbolic area be taken as the essence of mind as differentiated from brain its extensive development would appear to be the crucial function which marks off man from other animals. That it is a capacity not uniquely possessed by the human animal is evidenced by its indubitable, though limited, development in animals who live in close domestic relationship to man. Whether any computer yet developed can exhibit it I do not know, but see no reason why it should not be a potentiality of such machines.
Correspondingly there is little doubt that much of the management of our daily lives lies outside the symbolic area in habitual acts, social adjustments, contractual relationships and bodily functions. While the psycho-analytical method may enable us to detect the incursion of non-symbolic mindlessness into areas of activity and relationship that require emotion, symbol formation, thought, judgment, memory and decision as the background to action, the therapeutic method essentially stands helpless before such types of pathology. Experiences with groups, with autistic children a