This book traces the development of the understanding of symbols and their formation and use in its historical context, and discusses their clinical significance in psychoanalysis. It will be of relevance and use in the practical sense as well as the theoretical.

Rose, James

Symbolization -- About the Editor -- Symbols: on their formation and use -- A connection between a symbol and a symptom -- Triangulation, one's own mind and objectivity -- Symbols and their function in managing the anxiety of change: an intersubjective approach -- A psychoanalytic approach to perception -- A clinical paradox of absence in the transference: how some patients create a virtual object to communicate an experience -- Observing patients' use of the psychoanalytic setting to communicate an experience of absence: the work of progressive triangulation -- Some conclusions