The Structure of Cognitive Representation in Psychic Development.

This theoretical paper attempts to show how a consideration of the nature of symbolic thought and its development out of action may illuminate a number of problems in both general psychology and psychoanalysis. Central to this undertaking is the notion that both cognitive and emotional development proceed by a process of differentiation and integration. Such differentiation occurs primarily through the establishment of symbolic-categorical frames of reference which transcend the immediate context of action and feeling and with respect to which actions and affects may become differentiated, concrete particulars, organized in terms of meaningful general concepts. The paper begins with a review of basic clinical and experimental data from which a number of dichotomies between "primitive" and "advanced" thought (e.g., concrete vs. abstract; global and diffuse vs. dimensional and articulate; egocentric vs. objective) have sprung. This includes experimental and clinical data from the study of normal, brain-damaged, mentally retarded, neurotic, and schizophrenic children and adults. Of particular interest is the literature of amnesic aphasia because of the special insights it provides into the relationship of language and pre-categorical thought. Part I shows how many of these dichotomies can be unified and explained in terms of a hypothesized "line of development" of representational thought. The model draws heavily on the work of Piaget, Werner and Kaplan, Goldstein, Langer, and Fast, among others. This inquiry leads into a consideration of the roles of imagery, language, action, and affect in cognition, and provides the basis for a critique of the notion that cognitive development can be fruitfully considered separately from the growth of the total personality. Part II applies the insights and conclusions of this investigation in the reinterpretation of a number of classical doctrines of psychoanalytic metapsychology. Among the topics considered are: (1) the role of symbolic representation in memory; (2) what is meant by conscious, unconscious and preconscious thought; (3) the nature of the primary/secondary process distinction; and (4) the nature of insight in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.PhDClinical psychologyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/159729/1/8402273.pd