SYMBOLS AND THEIR FUNCTION IN MANAGING THE ANXIETY OF CHANGE: AN INTERSUBJECTIVE APPROACH

摘要

The author suggests that change inevitably creates anxiety because of loss and confrontation with the unknown. It is proposed that one function of symbols is to manage the anxiety of change. They do this by creating a means by which anxieties can be presented to the subject and then communicated to another mind. These creations are called symbolic because, it is proposed, their purpose is the communication as well as the incorporation of internal anxieties and desires with external exigencies, which might be termed symptoms. Viewing them in this way enables the analyst to put symbolic phenomena as they emerge in an analysis into an intersubjective perspective.