Symbolic attitude and reverie: symbolization problems in children and adolescents

In our daily practice, we frequently see children and adolescents whose ability to symbolize is impaired because they have undergone trauma related to serious environmental deficiencies or chronic illness. The author suggests that the analyst’s “symbolic attitude” can be the most valuable resource in helping such patients. Although, according to Jung, the transcendent function is a natural process based on an archetypal dynamic, it does not operate spontaneously. It requires a matrix based on the primary relationship, likely to be re-actualized in the course of therapy. The author develops the Jungian concept of “symbolic attitude” in light of the concept of “reverie” suggested by Bion as a means of envisaging the formation of symbols within the transference relationship. This approach is supported by a clinical case study of a ten-year-old boy suffering from congenital megacolon. The author describes how therapist and patient wrote and illustrated stories together, in what he considers a variation on the active imagination technique, in order to set up a symbolic space within the therapy and an inner psychic space for the boy.