Symbol Formation in Psychoanalysis: Clinical and Observational Work with Children and Adults - Softcover

Marisa Pelella Mélega

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1914901126 ISBN 13: 9781914901126

Publisher: Phoenix Publishing House, 2023

Synopsis

Marisa Pelella Mélega draws on a broad spectrum of clinical and observational work, gathered over many years as a practising and teaching psychoanalyst based in São Paulo, Brazil. The role of symbol formation as a goal in psychoanalysis, and an indicator of developmental progress, has always been recognised. The post-Kleinian understanding of its operation has advanced since Bion’s theory of thinking and Meltzer’s elucidation of the role of ‘dream life’, which view the desire for knowledge as the resolution of emotional conflict, with symbol formation being the primary mental mechanism. Mélega discusses illustrative examples from newborn infants, children of different ages, adolescents and adults, to illustrate her longstanding fascination with the process of symbol formation and its vicissitudes, including those transference moments at which symbols are forged during the analytic session.

About this title

About the Author

Marisa Pelella Mélega is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst in private practice and a Training Analyst and Supervisor at the Brazilian Psychoanalytic Society of São Paulo. She founded the São Paulo Mother–Baby Relationship Study Centre in 1987, receiving accreditation from the Centro Studi Martha Harris, in Rome. She teaches at the Brazilian Institute as a child psychoanalyst, 1996. Her clinical and research interests include applications of the Esther Bick observation model, as in assessment and therapeutic interventions with parents and children.

Edition details

• Publisher: Phoenix Publishing House
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1914901126
• ISBN 13: 9781914901126
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 250