Transformations at the Dawn of Verbal Language

Bibliographic Data

ID8334716
AuthorsThomas H Ogden (0000-0001-8800-1435, Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume72
Issue5
Pages743-754
Publication date2024-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-0651 • E-ISSN: 1941-2460
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00030651241257263
PMID38877745
OpenAlexW4399705730
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited13

In this essay the author describes some of the transformations that occur as one moves from preverbal functioning to verbally symbolic language. In preverbal experience, there is a direct connection between the sign and what is signified. An infant or child signifies displeasure by throwing his food or other objects to the floor. Much of the emotional tie between mother and infant and patient and analyst is communicated in this way. When a transformation occurs from preverbal to verbally symbolic language, as occurs in early development and as one interprets a dream, meaning is not merely translated, meaning is created. On acquiring verbally symbolic language, a “space” mediated by an interpreting subject opens between the symbol (for instance, the word guilt) and the symbolized (the experience of guilt) and a new subjectivity is created. On entry into verbally symbolic language, one becomes able to experience oneself in a qualitatively different way; one becomes both subject and object, I and me; one becomes able to experience a far broader range of feelings and types of thinking. Helen Keller’s account of her experience of acquiring verbally symbolic language is drawn upon

Dream · Epistemology · Feeling · Linguistics · Meaning (existential) · Object (grammar) · Psychoanalysis · Sign language · Sign system · Subject (documents) · Subjectivity · Symbol (formal) · Symbolic communication · The Symbolic · Communication · Computer Science · Counseling, Therapy, and Family Dynamics · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Psychology · Social Psychology · Social Representations and Identity

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