title: Unthinkability and psychosomatic symptoms.
abstract: W. R. Bion (1952) has pointed out a connection between alterations in the development of the "apparatus for thinking thoughts" and psychosomatic symptoms. Many authors have used this insight, from their own points of view, as a basis for describing this deficiency in thought and in the capacity to formulate images related to the development of psychosomatic symptoms (Krystal & McDougall 1979; Segal, 1950, 1958). This paper applies this hypothesis to a clinical case in which special emphasis is given to the symbolic deficiency, its effect on transference-countertransference, and its relation to falsification, "hyposymbolization," and to a specific phenomenon that could be called "hypersymbolization," in which many meanings are embodied in the same symbol.
mesh_terms: D003379:Countertransference; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D004208:Displacement, Psychological; D005201:Fantasy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007062:Identification, Psychological; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D011385:Projection; D011573:Psychoanalytic Interpretation; D011602:Psychophysiologic Disorders / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D013561:Symbolism; D013850:Thinking; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology