Melanie Klein, “The Importance of Symbol-Formation in the Development of the Ego” (1930) (XIII)
We have now reviewed some of the background to Klein’s use of phrases like “talent and sublimation." This background is contained in “Infant Analysis” (1923), the text to which Klein briefly refers, without elaboration, in “Symbol-Formation.” In this earlier essay, at least, Klein spoke the idiom of “libidinal cathexis” — the unconscious investment of “superfluous libido” in so-called “ego-tendencies.” This mechanism broadly explains our interest in certain movements, faculties, activities, and projects, as well as our capacities in each of these areas. This libido, and more specifically the “pleasurable situations” (98) from infancy unconsciously structuring this libido, “provide the ego-tendency with the sum of affect which acts as the stimulus and driving force of talent” (98). The term “ego tendency,” we saw, ranges everything from “the earliest movements and games of motion” (111), to “the function of nutrition” (115), to “art or…creative talent” (99). (This is a conceptual refinement, it seems to me, of the comparatively undeveloped notions of Freud’s original drive theory, where sublimation designates simple “aim deflected” libido — say, in “Character and Anal Erotism.”)
By the same token, however, as Klein further underlines in “Infant Analysis,” any inhibitions encumbering this superfluous libido may likewise affect these ego-tendencies. In other words, an ego-tendency may itself become inhibited. In this respect, “the development of the ego-tendency must also depend on the fate of the libido with which it is associated, that is to say, on the success of the libidinal cathexis” (94). And again, in words that take us directly to our theme in this entry, Klein suggests that the “displacement of inhibition or anxiety from one group of ego-tendencies to another” is enabled by the “cathexis of a sexual-symbolic character…common to both groups” (92).
This last line — “cathexis of a sexual-symbolic character” — brings us to the second part of Klein’s argument, which I’ve essentially bracketed until now. For Klein’s full position, on which she will build years later in “Symbol-Formation,” is that sublimation and talent — the general ingredients and mechanisms of which are now in view — are themselves grounded, as explananda, in a particular foundation, the explanans of symbolic equation. To consider once more the passage from “Symbol-Formation” we’ve been investigating:
“Some years ago I wrote a paper…in which I drew the conclusion that symbolism is the foundation of all sublimation and of every talent, since it is by way of symbolic equation that things, activities and interests become the subject of libidinal phantasies.” (220, my italics)
How in “Infant Analysis” does Klein concretize what appears in 1930 as a rather abstract, undeveloped assertion? First, again, the explananda:
“While we accept as valid the differentiation between ego-instincts and sexual instincts…some part of the sexual instincts remains throughout life associated with the ego-instincts and furnishes them with libidinal components.” (95)
And now, in the next lines, the explanans:
“[T]he sexual-symbolic cathexis of a trend or activity belonging to the ego-instincts corresponds to this libidinal component. We call this process of cathexis with libido ‘sublimation’ and explain its genesis by saying that it gives to superfluous libido, for which there is no adequate satisfaction, the possibility of discharge, and that the damming-up of libido is thus lessened or brought to an end.” (95, my italics)
This, finally, is the missing item in Klein’s account: only by virtue of the “sexual-symbolic cathexis of a trend or activity belonging to the ego-instincts” do ego-tendencies become amenable to the sort of investment, hence “discharge,” definitive of “sublimation.” Klein makes the point a moment later in a slightly different form:
“[S]ymbol-formation…affords an opportunity for libido to be displaced on to other objects and activities of the self-preservative instincts, not originally possessing a pleasurable tone. Here we arrive at the mechanism of sublimation.” (96, my italics)
And again:
“sublimation…takes place by way of symbol-formation, libidinal phantasies becoming fixated in sexual-symbolic fashion upon particular objects, activities and interests” (96, my italics)
We said above that the “pleasurable situations” from infancy, unconsciously structuring libido, “provide the ego-tendency with the sum of affect which acts as the stimulus and driving force of talent.” But these early pleasurable situations possess a certain structure — quintessentially a structure belonging to a specific Oedipal fantasy. And what Klein has designated the “sexual-symbolic cathexis of a trend or activity belonging to the ego-instincts” is precisely the mechanism which affixes the libido of this fantasy to the “particular objects, activities and interests” that share that fantasy’s original structure. (We might say that, from the unconscious standpoint, the ego-tendency in question — the object, activity, or interest — simply is the phanatasied object.) Klein provides the following illustrations:
“In the cases I have mentioned of pleasure in motion — games and athletic activities — we could recognize the influence of the sexual-symbolic meaning of the playing-field, the road, etc. (symbolizing the mother), while walking, running, and athletic movements of all kinds stood for penetrating into the mother. At the same time, the feet, the hands and the body, which carry out these activities and in consequence of early identification are equated with the penis, served to attract to themselves some of the phantasies which really had to do with the penis and the situations of gratification associated with that organ. The connecting-link was probably pleasure in motion or rather organ-pleasure in itself.” (96, my italics)
These illustrations speak for themselves and I won’t belabor Klein’s point. I would, however, draw attention to a trope here that establishes a basic continuity between “Infant Analysis” and “Symbol-Formation” that might otherwise be lost among the intervening changes to Klein’s position. I’d like, that is, to underscore the importance of the mother, and specifically the mother’s body, as one crucial phantasied object — one unconsciously re-experienced in those items with which it has been symbolically equated. It is above all this object, finally, which exploits the “sexual-symbolic cathexis of a trend or activity belonging to the ego-instincts” — in order unconsciously to win a second life for itself.
Melanie Klein, “The Importance of Symbol-Formation in the Development of the Ego” (1930) (XII)
In “Symbol-Formation” (1930), Klein indicates that “Infant Analysis” (1923) represents her thinking about symbols hitherto:
“Some years ago I wrote a paper…in which I drew the conclusion that symbolism is the foundation of all sublimation and of every talent, since it is by way of symbolic equation that things, activities and interests become the subject of libidinal phantasies.” (220)
But, of course, when Klein published 1923’s “Infant Analysis,” Freud’s own thinking was still undergoing far-reaching changes. These changes were only gradually consolidated, it seems to me, in the years between Klein’s two essays (if not afterwards), and account for several of the striking differences in the latter. We will note the following three changes to Freud’s views during these years:
The revision of the drive theory, such that one dualism (libidinal drives and self-preserving drives) gives way to another (life-drives and death-drives) — with all the resulting conceptual complications this brings.
A new theory of anxiety, according to which anxiety is not “transformed libido” (a transformation ostensibly catalyzed by repression), but — at least in large part, and most significantly in the clinical setting — a “signal” of approaching danger.
The introduction of the structural model of the mind — alongside, but also in a kind of tension with, the previous “topographic” model.
I was unable to find any traces of these changes in Klein’s “Infant Analysis,” which makes no mention of any “drive” apart from “libido” and the “ego-drives.” (Certainly the death drive is nowhere to be found, while even “aggression” as a response to frustration plays no role here, let alone as an inborn ingredient in ever human psyche). Nor do we encounter any “anxiety” in this essay apart from that which constitutes transformed libido; or, again, any “agency” of the structural model apart from the “ego” — something not yet counterposed to the id and superego. By contrast, as we have seen, the account in “Symbol-Formation” clearly reflects each of these changes to Freud’s views. This, in any case, is the conceptual context for Klein’s treatment of symbols in “Infant Analysis,” which helps to explain some of its peculiarities.
Looking backward in “Symbol-Formation,” then, Klein ascribes to “Infant Analysis” the claim that “symbolism is the foundation of all sublimation and of every talent, since it is by way of symbolic equation that things, activities and interests become the subject of libidinal phantasies” (220). Where exactly in “Infant Analysis” are these claims introduced? What do they mean in the concrete? And how must they appear to Klein from her rather different theoretical standpoint in 1930?
The direction of explanation here is, as I’ve already underlined, from symbolism to sublimation and talent: the former is a condition of possibility of the latter. Accordingly, we are given to understand that in the absence of symbolism — more specifically, in the absence of “symbolic equation” — nothing like sublimation or talent could emerge at all.
Let us begin with the explananda (sublimation and talent) and, from there, consider the explanans (symbolic equation) that ostensibly grounds it. In “Infant Analysis,” Klein tells us that “sublimation” designates “the capacity to employ superfluous libido in a cathexis of ego-tendencies” (91). And later she elaborates that “libidinal cathexis of an ego-tendency…is (as appears with special clearness in infant-analysis) a constant component of every talent and every interest” (94).
What does Klein have in mind here? It is clear from the remainder of the piece that the phrase “ego-tendency” embraces a virtually inexhaustible range of human faculties, skills, and achievements, from the primitive to the sophisticated. It includes “games and athletic activities” (96); “walking, running, and athletic movements of all kinds” (96); ”art or…creative talent” (99); “the earliest movements and games of motion” (111); “walking, games and the sense of orientation” (111); “the activities of school life” (111); “speech and pleasure in motion” (114); as well as — Freud pointed this out — “the function of nutrition” (115). Indeed, this view becomes the basis of a strong anthropological conjecture:
“[T]he impulsion constantly to effect by means of fixations a libidinal cathexis of fresh ego-activities and interests genetically…connected with one another, and to create new activities and interests, would be the driving force in the cultural evolution of mankind.” (115)
Again: the general mechanism at the root of all these “activities and interests” — namely, the “libidinal cathexis of an ego-tendency” — is taken over from Freud:
“While we accept as valid the differentiation between ego-instincts and sexual instincts, we know on the other hand from Freud that some part of the sexual instincts remains throughout life associated with the ego-instincts and furnishes them with libidinal components…We call this process of cathexis with libido 'sublimation' and explain its genesis by saying that it gives to superfluous libido, for which there is no adequate satisfaction, the possibility of discharge, and that the damming-up of libido is thus lessened or brought to an end” (95)
All of this background, then, seems to be contained in the lines of “Symbol-Formation” that referred us back to “Infant Analysis” in the first place: the explananda of “sublimation and…every talent,” or the “things, activities and interests” that in the earlier essay are simply named “ego-tendencies.” The effective engine of these ego-tendencies — at least the part that elevates these tendencies to the level of a human skill or talent — is the libido with which they are invested.
(In other words: while something like ego-drives are also presumably at play in these matters, they would not suffice on their own to draw the requisite “interest” to a ego-tendency which would convert it into a “talent” proper. Only their “cathexis with libido” — “sublimation” — accomplishes this.)
So much, then, for the explananda. What leads Klein to make “symbolic equation” the explanans? I will take this up in the next entry.
Melanie Klein, “The Importance of Symbol-Formation in the Development of the Ego” (1930) (XI)
We’ve been discussing Klein’s (ambiguous) appropriation of ideas found in Ferenczi and Ernest Jones related to symbolism, and we’ve tried to clarify which elements of these ideas, exactly, form the basis of her argument in “Symbol-Formation.” These ideas explicitly concern “identification,” its motivational sources, and its anticipation of symbols proper (Ferenczi); and the pleasure principle (in this context, libidinal investment) as a condition of possibility for those “equations” that constitute symbols (Jones).
I tried especially to fill in an unspoken premise of Klein’s use of the term “symbol.” (It is at least something that receives no direct comment in the essay.) In its technical, psychoanalytic sense, a symbol involves an item that is unconsciously equated with another item — i.e. symbolizes it — which is itself repressed, but whose “affective charge” accrues to the symbol that replaces it. To turn now to Klein's third and final reference point:
“Some years ago I wrote a paper, based on these statements, in which I drew the conclusion that symbolism is the foundation of all sublimation and of every talent, since it is by way of symbolic equation that things, activities and interests become the subject of libidinal phantasies.” (220)
It is here, as we saw in the last entry, that Klein’s editors refer us to her essay, “Infant Analysis,” from 1923. The early publication date itself helps explain several peculiarities of the essay — in any case, “peculiar” relative to the positions taken 1930’s “Symbol-Formation.” These include the following:
Klein is principally concerned in “Infant Analysis” with the question of “inhibitions” (neurotic and otherwise) — their origin, nature, and consequences. She is particularly interested in clarifying the relation of inhibitions to inter alia the mechanisms of repression, identification, sublimation, as well as cognate entities such as neurotic “symptoms.” The problem of anxiety, too, figures prominently in this account. And yet her conception of anxiety is essentially — albeit understandably — taken over from Freud’s treatment of it in the Introductory Lectures (1915–1917), “Repression” (1915), and “The Unconscious” (1915). In other words, “Infant Analysis” is grounded in Freud’s early concept of anxiety — libido, when obstructed by repression, is “transformed” into anxiety, as wine into vinegar — rather than his final theory, which is only articulated after Klein’s piece, in Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety (1926). Hence “Infant Analysis” contains nothing like the “signal anxiety” that soon becomes standard in psychoanalytic discussion — let alone those differentiated types of anxiety that have by “Symbol-Formation” become central to Klein’s whole conception of mental functioning: retaliatory, paranoid anxiety, annihilation anxiety, and the others we’ve already examined.
These last innovations in Kleins understanding of anxiety indicate another peculiarity of “Infant Analysis.” For by 1930 she will claim that the essential genesis of anxiety is in the infant’s own death drive. (We have already reviewed the ideas associated with this claim in considerable detail.) Yet not only is anything like inborn aggression or a “sadistic phase” absent from “Infant Analysis”; we will not even find something as tepid as “anger” in it. The reasons for this absence — so conspicuous in light of aggression’s (perhaps outsized) prominence in standard “Kleinian” thinking — are slightly less clear. Freud published Beyond the Pleasure Principle in 1920, so the death drive would have been familiar to Klein by the time she wrote “Infant Analysis.” Nevertheless, we may hypothesize that psychoanalytic thinking required some time in order to assimilate this new “drive” into its model of mental functioning and development. So, we may recall that, for Freud, everything to do with neurosis centered on the repression of libidinal impulses. Hence neither the core defense nor the object of this defense seemed to concern the (not yet introduced) death drive. Yet by “Symbol-Formation,” both the defense (projection, destruction) and its object (sadistic impulses) are inseparable from the death drive.
In at least these respects, then, the position outlined in “Symbol-Formation” is distinct from — and arguably inconsistent with — the one defended in “Infant Analysis.” Both Klein's focus (theoretical and clinical), and her explanatory framework have developed. These caveats aside, though, Klein now reiterates a “conclusion” from the earlier essay, as a basis for further elaboration. Here again is the line:
“…I drew the conclusion that symbolism is the foundation of all sublimation and of every talent, since it is by way of symbolic equation that things, activities and interests become the subject of libidinal phantasies.” (220)
Here I will repeat something I’ve already emphasized: whereas, according to her paraphrases, Ferenczi and Jones have identified several of the preconditions of symbol-formation (identification, and an equating activity propelled by the pleasure principle), Klein's “conclusion” in “Infant Analysis” runs in the opposite direction. According to this account, symbolism is itself the precondition of additional capacities: namely, sublimation and talent.
What exactly does Klein have in mind, then, with this assertion? How are sublimation and talent “founded” in symbolism? And how might Klein intend to build upon this idea in the remainder of “Symbol-Formation”?
I will address these questions in the next entry.
Melanie Klein, “The Importance of Symbol-Formation in the Development of the Ego” (1930) (X)
We’ve begun to interpret a passage that summarizes three theoretical points of reference — three positions regarding the origin and function of symbols — which form relevant background to Klein’s argument in “Symbol-Formation.” The passage, again:
“[1] [Sándor] Ferenczi holds that identification, the forerunner of symbolism, arises out of the baby's endeavour to re-discover in every object his own organs and their functioning. [2] In [Ernest] Jones’ view the pleasure-principle makes it possible for two quite different things to be equated because of a similarity marked by pleasure or interest. [3] Some years ago I wrote a paper, based on these statements, in which I drew the conclusion that symbolism is the foundation of all sublimation and of every talent, since it is by way of symbolic equation that things, activities and interests become the subject of libidinal phantasies.” (220, bracketed numbers mine)
In the last entry, I quoted some material from Ferenczi’s essay, “Symbolism” (1912) that both amplifies and complicates Klein’s attribution here. In particular, we examined the special meanings of both “identification” and “symbolism” for Ferenczi (hardly obvious from Klein’s paraphrase), and hence the peculiar way in which identification could be a “forerunner” of symbolism. We saw that, in its technical, psychoanalytic sense, a symbol inherently involves the repression of whichever item (idea or thing) has been “symbolized” — hence the (seemingly irrational) affective “charge” that accrues to the symbol itself. In his essay, Ferenczi provides the following straightforward illustrations of this idea:
“Originally penis and tree, penis and church-steeple, were consciously equated; but only with the repression of the interest in the penis do the tree and church-steeple become invested with inexplicable and apparently ungrounded interest; they become penis symbols” (280)
In this entry I’d like to say something about [2] and [3]. The references are to Jones’s comprehensive (and lengthy) essay, “The Theory of Symbolism” (1918), and to Klein’s “Infant Analysis” (1923). To begin with [2]: “In Jones’ view the pleasure-principle makes it possible for two quite different things to be equated because of a similarity marked by pleasure or interest.” Where in Jones’s essay does he propose this view? What we find when we turn to the text is remarkable. For while Jones elaborates upon this theme for significant stretches of the essay — i.e. the relation of symbol-formation to the pleasure principle — he appears to credit the basic claim to Ferenczi himself. Indeed, not only does Jones credit this claim to Ferenczi; he quotes from the very same text — “Symbolism” — that Klein herself draws upon a moment earlier. So, from “The Theory of Symbolism”:
“The point is clearly put by Ferenczi, who writes: ‘One was formerly inclined to believe that things are confounded because they are similar; nowadays we know that a thing is confounded with another only because certain motives for this are present; similarity merely provides the opportunity for these motives to function.’” (203)
It is true, as Klein’s words indicate, that Jones develops Ferenczi’s suggestion — that “motives” enable the “confounding” of one thing with another — in terms of the “pleasure principle.” And in any case she must have felt some responsibility to provide a reference to Jones’s innovative work in this area.
Nonetheless, I wonder if there isn’t some additional reason why Klein links this idea to Jones, rather than assigning precedence to Ferenczi. Perhaps her motivation is personal. To see why, consider the following passage from “Infant Analysis” (1923), in which Klein — again — attributes this thesis to Jones’s “The Theory of Symbolism.” “[T]he process of identification,” she writes, is one in which,
“according to Jones, the pleasure-principle allows us to compare two otherwise quite different objects on the basis of a similitude of pleasurable tone, or of interest. But we are probably justified in assuming that on the other hand these objects and activities, not in themselves sources of pleasure, become so through this identification, a sexual pleasure being displaced on to them…” (96)
In other words, in this place, immediately after making the same attribution to Jones, Klein radically qualifies his idea — nearly to the point, it seems to me, of undermining it. The very position that she assigns to Jones and that ostensibly forms the basis of her own innovations is, she has just indicated, only half correct. Perhaps a similarity of pleasure or interest accounts for the equation of otherwise-dissimilar things; but it is also the case that “objects and activities, not in themselves sources of pleasure, become so through this identification, a sexual pleasure being displaced on to them.”
This amendment evidently begs the original question. For if not for any similarity — at least initially — in the pleasure yielded by dissimilar things, then by virtue of what quality are the two things equated in the first place? One may perhaps respond that some surplus of pleasure “overflows” from the original object and attaches to some other object, associatively, in the vicinity of the experience. In that case, however, one is left with the conclusion that the process of identification is essentially arbitrary. One object is first “equated” with a second object, and only then does one speak of a “similarity” between the two.
Yet this doesn’t seem to be Klein’s view, either. She seems rather to recognize that symbols do possess a certain objective “aptness” vis-à-vis the things they symbolize. All of which raises the question: why should Klein attribute to Jones a view that (a) belongs originally to Ferenczi (at least some iteration of it) and (b) she doesn’t actually accept without (to put it mildly) strong caveats? Here I would cautiously propose that the question answers itself. It is precisely because she is ultimately so critical of the view that she prefers to attribute it to Jones, rather than Ferenczi. The latter was her analyst, after all (as was Karl Abraham). Perhaps on some level she felt an impulse to protect him from her negative judgment.
Melanie Klein, “The Importance of Symbol-Formation in the Development of the Ego” (1930) (IX)
Klein has until now restricted her comments to the place of aggression, anxiety, and defense during the “sadistic phase,” together with the (body-indexed) phantasies in which this constellation presents itself to the infant. Only in the next paragraph does Klein arrive explicitly at the nominal focus of her essay: the nature and function of “symbol formation.” (I say “explicitly” here, since some theory of symbols is arguably implicit already in her account of phantasy.)
The paragraph is a compressed rehearsal of three theoretical points of reference, in relation to which Klein will gradually articulate her own position. These points of reference include reflections on symbols by Sándor Ferenczi, Ernest Jones, and Klein herself at an earlier stage of her thinking:
“[1] Ferenczi holds that identification, the forerunner of symbolism, arises out of the baby's endeavour to re-discover in every object his own organs and their functioning. [2] In Jones' view the pleasure-principle makes it possible for two quite different things to be equated because of a similarity marked by pleasure or interest. [3] Some years ago I wrote a paper, based on these statements, in which I drew the conclusion that symbolism is the foundation of all sublimation and of every talent, since it is by way of symbolic equation that things, activities and interests become the subject of libidinal phantasies.” (220, bracket brackets mine)
We will say something about each of these three points of reference, in turn. But first we we will make a general observation: while each of the three concerns symbolism, the “direction of explanation” shifts. According to the passage, Ferenczi and Jones are in their thinking concerned with symbolism’s conditions possibility, that is, the mechanisms which (genetically and logically) must be in place for symbolism to function. For Ferenczi, these conditions include the infant’s (antecedent) capacity for “identification”; for Jones, they include the infant’s “equating” activity (itself enabled by the pleasure principle).
By contrast, Klein’s thesis, at least as she paraphrases it here, concerns a consequence of symbolism, or the latter’s contribution to mental functioning. More specifically, she argues that symbolism is itself a condition of possibility — a mechanism that must be established — for such items as “sublimation” and “talent(s)” to develop at all.
This observation aside, let us consider the three conceptions of symbol-formation Klein names — [1] Ferenczi, in the remainder of this entry; [2] Jones and [3] Klein herself, in the following entry.
[1] “Ferenczi holds that identification, the forerunner of symbolism, arises out of the baby's endeavour to re-discover in every object his own organs and their functioning.” There are two claims here: first — stated as something essentially uncontroversial — that identification is a forerunner of symbolism; and second, that identification is itself the result of a specific infantile project, i.e. the rediscovery of itself (its organs) in objects.
Now, Klein does not include a reference to any particular source. And in fact it seems likely that Ferenczi developed these ideas in more than one place. Nonetheless, on the evidence, Klein probably has in mind his essay “Symbolism” (1912). Here we find several passages which illuminate Klein’s position. Ferenczi writes:
“…I have attempted to explain the origin of symbolism from the impulse to represent infantile wishes as being fulfilled, by means of the child's own body. The symbolic identification of external objects with bodily organs makes it possible to find again, on the one hand, all the wished-for objects of the world in the individual's body, on the other hand, the treasured organs of the individual's body in objects conceived in an animistic manner…I imagine that this symbolic equating of genital organs with other organs and with external objects originally happens only in a playful way, out of exuberance, so to speak. The equations thus arising, however, are secondarily made to serve repression, which seeks to weaken one member of the equation, while it symbolically over-emphasizes the other, more harmless one by the amount of the repressed affect.” (274-75)
And later:
“There can be no doubt that the child (like the unconscious) identifies two things on the basis of the slightest resemblance, displaces affects with ease from one to the other, and gives the same name to both…[S]imiles, allegories, metaphors, allusions, parables, emblems, and indirect representations of every sort might also in a certain sense be conceived as products of this lack of sharpness in distinction and definition, and yet they are not — in the psycho-analytical sense — symbols. Only such things (or ideas) are symbols in the sense of psycho-analysis as are invested in consciousness with a logically inexplicable and unfounded affect, and of which it may be analytically established that they owe this affective over-emphasis to unconscious identification with another thing (or idea), to which the surplus of affect really belongs. Not all similes, therefore, are symbols, but only those in which the one member of the equation is repressed into the unconscious.” (276-78)
Several aspects of Ferenczi’s ideas here stand out and complicate, or at least expand, the ones Klein attributes to him in “Symbol-Formation.” Naturally, this is also important context for grasping the meaning of Klein’s views in the remainder of her essay.
First, the “identification” that interests Ferenczi runs in two directions. This action consists, not only in the infant’s impulse to find, or re-find, its organs in the object, but also in its impulse to locate the object in itself, its own organs. Both constitute the general mechanism Ferenczi calls “identification.” Indeed, identification also embraces the infant’s activity of “equating…genital organs with other organs” — that is, a potentially internal or self-reflexive process.
Second, as this last quotation suggests, “identification” appears for Ferenczi to signify “equating” activities in a quite general sense. We might have imagined, by contrast, that identification included only that specific kind of equating activity that Freud designated by the term: the self’s efforts to “identify” with its (external) object, via patterns of mimicry and emulation, or incorporation, or “feeling oneself the same” as the object, and so on.
Third, it emerges that identification is the “forerunner” of symbols in a quite peculiar sense, and one that is hardly self-evident from Klein’s words in “Symbol-Formation.” Identification is initially both propelled by, and issues in, conscious fantasy. The infant, as Ferenczi puts it, “identifies two things on the basis of the slightest resemblance, displaces affects with ease from one to the other, and gives the same name to both,” and, moreover, this “originally happens only in a playful way, out of exuberance, so to speak.” Only with the advent of “repression” do “symbols” proper appear, in the technical sense recognized by psychoanalysis. Again, “symbols” so conceived bear “a logically inexplicable and unfounded affect, and…owe this affective over-emphasis to unconscious identification with another thing (or idea), to which the surplus of affect really belongs.” So Ferenczi can conclude: “Not all similes…are symbols, but only those in which the one member of the equation is repressed into the unconscious.” Hence the activity of identification represents a mere “forerunner” of symbol-formation because, while it may equate one (primary) thing with another (secondary) thing, the latter is perhaps only a “simile” or “metaphor” unless and until repression allows (or demands) a form of unconscious equation. Only the latter generates a “symbol” laden with a quantity of affect that is intelligible only with reference to that repressed “thing” it unconsciously symbolizes.