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From a [[psychoanalytic ]] perspective, the symbol refers to all indirect and figurative representations of [[unconscious ]] [[desire ]] ([[symptoms]], [[dreams]], [[slips of the tongue]], [[parapraxes]], etc.). This conception of the unconscious symbol depends on a relation of general [[substitution ]] where one [[thing ]] takes the [[place ]] of [[another]]; but unlike the term's conventional [[meaning]], defined by the conjunction between the symbol and what is [[symbolized]], the unconscious symbol is defined by a disjunction between symbol and symbolized.

[[Freud ]] clarified this conception of the symbol following the "[[Project ]] for a [[Scientific ]] [[Psychology]]" (1950c [1895]), describing it as a mnemic symbol subsequent to his research into [[hysterical ]] symptoms. In the [[case ]] of a "standard" symbol, the connection between the symbol and what is symbolized remains, as in the example that Freud gives of the knight who fights for his lady's glove but who [[knows ]] [[full ]] well that the glove owes its importance to her. In this synecdoche of part for [[whole ]] the conjunction of meaning is clear. With [[hysteria ]] however, it is the [[loss ]] of the connection between the symbol and what is symbolized that is noteworthy: "The [[hysteric]], who weeps at A, is quite unaware that he is doing so on account of the [[association ]] A-B, and B itself plays no part at all in his [[psychical ]] [[life]]. The symbol has in this case taken the place of [[the thing ]] entirely" (1950c, p. 349).

As a result of this disjunction of meaning, the [[affect ]] that was bound to what is symbolized attaches itself to the symbol. In both instances the substitution assumes a similarity between the symbol and what is symbolized (A/B), and thus emerges the tension at the very heart of symbolic substitution between a nonsensical literal interpretation and a symbolic interpretation that supports a [[surplus ]] of meaning because of the very [[denial ]] or negation [[[négation]]] precluding the pure and simple assimilation of the two [[terms ]] in question. In the case of the hysterical symbol, it is the [[impossibility ]] of invoking denial that would explain the [[symptom]]'s [[apparent ]] absurdity.

What might appear here as a simple relation of substitution between two terms —the symbol and what is symbolized—allows, in fact, for an interpretation where meaning might attributed according to context. The symbol's abundance derives from its polysemy, but only reference to a regulated [[system ]] of interpretation can lend precision to the symbol, hence the requirement to define the system and determine what it is that permits this regulation.

Freud hesitated between two rules of interpretation. Either it depends on [[individual ]] context—specifically, a person's individual [[associations]], which permit [[them ]] to discover hidden meaning, as in the hysterical symptom or in dreams—or on collective context—specifically, a [[work ]] of transindividual [[culture ]] that clarifies meaning, as in "symbolic [[dream]]-[[interpreting]]" (1900a, p. 97). On the [[subject ]] of the dream, he depicted [[sexual ]] symbols that did not arouse associations for the dreamer but that the [[analysis ]] would supply by referring to the symbolism of collective compositions ([[myths]], tales, proverbs, songs, etc.); this enabled him to rediscover the correlation between the [[manifest ]] and [[latent ]] symbol. This obscure and concealed comparability appeared to be based on a [[relationship ]] of equivalence (a tree for the [[male ]] sex organs, a cave for the [[female ]] sex organs), but also occasionally on a relationship of proximity (nudity symbolized by clothes and uniforms).

If symbols are multiple, the field of what is symbolized is highly limited, relating ultimately to the [[domain ]] of sexual [[instinct]]. The [[theory ]] of a predetermined and stereotyped sexual symbolic, in the service of an oneiric representability, corresponds with Freud's [[wish ]] to contest [[Jung]]'s theory of symbolism, whose conception of the "[[libido]]-symbol" ends up denying the importance of the [[sexual instinct ]] in [[psychic ]] [[behavior]]. Ernest [[Jones]]'s key paper, "The Theory of Symbolism" (1916), seeks moreover to reinforce the [[Freudian ]] theory of "symbolic dream-interpretation"; for Jones all [[true ]] symbolism is the [[substitute ]] for [[repressed ]] [[drives]]/instincts: "Only that which is repressed is symbolized and only that which is repressed requires [[symbolization]]."

It is a question then of finding a rule of interpretation that can substantiate the discovery of the unconscious. To back up his theory Freud adopted the [[linguist ]] [[Hans ]] Sperber's theory of a [[primitive ]] [[language ]] [[[langue]]] parallel to the primitive language system [[[langage]]] of [[sexuality ]] in which all symbolic connections would appear as traces and relics: "That which today is linked [[symbolically ]] was in all probability formerly linked conceptually and [[linguistically]]." Freud is thus compelled to set out from a [[real ]] anteriority, in a proximate association, or [[identity ]] even, that belongs, through a similar association, to language and to a [[process ]] of symbolization that is inseparable from the work of instinct.

Thus, the theory of [[the symbolic ]] designates more of a [[structural ]] [[demand ]] than a [[clinical ]] [[truth]]. In clinical terms, Freud always mistrusted instant symbolic [[interpretations ]] and preferred to rely on individual associations that allowed him to uncover a [[linguistic ]] usage that would justify the use of a symbolic representation.

Freud's theory of the symbol cannot therefore be separated from a conception of symbolization, which bears out the fact that the psychoanalytic approach is more a [[tripartite ]] theory of interpretation, where it is necessary to consider the subject who symbolizes, than a theory of [[translation ]] seeking to proceed via the simple substitution of one term for another. Freud's uncertainty demonstrates the difficulty of constructing a theory of the symbol while making allowances for the symbol both as a motivated [[sign ]] (the symbol for Ferdinand de [[Saussure]], corresponding to a [[natural ]] analogy between symbol and symbolized) and as an [[arbitrary ]] sign (the symbol for Charles Sanders Pierce, corresponding to the standard rule governing the [[signifier ]] and [[signified]], in [[other ]] [[words ]] to the arbitrary linguistic sign).

What is problematic with this theory of the symbolic is the conception of symbolization as a failure of [[sublimation ]] rather than as its accomplishment. This opposition marks a [[return ]] in too radical a fashion to the opposition between a symbolism of the unconscious and a symbolism of language. Post-Freudian theorists have sought to reconcile these different aspects of the symbol, whether through a semantic perspective associated with the [[image]], as in the case of Melanie [[Klein ]] and post-[[Kleinian ]] theorists, or through a syntactic approach associated with language, as in the case of Jacques [[Lacan]]. It is a question in both cases of reviving the Freudian intuition of the symbol as the result of a process of symbolization. To Klein's interpretation of the [[imaginary]], which retains a certain [[psychological ]] realism, Lacan opposed reference to the symbolic [[order ]] that represents an [[intellectualization ]] of the unconscious.

The approach to symbolization as a process presupposes the preservation of that which Freud, rather awkwardly, wished always to have prevail: namely, the [[necessity ]] for a [[dualism]], for the articulation of a viable [[distinction ]] between the symbolism of the image and the symbolism of language. The truth of Freudian [[empiricism ]] in the theory of primitive language, like the original proximity of the symbol, is no [[doubt ]] to mark the importance of this fundamental proximity of the [[psyche ]] with the [[body ]] as the juncture between representation and affect, between meaning and primitive [[animism]], characteristic of the [[hallucinatory ]] [[satisfaction ]] of desire.

* [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1900a). The [[interpretation of dreams]]. Part I, SE, 4: 1-338; Part II, SE, 5, 339-625.