Content uploaded by Wilma Bucci
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Wilma Bucci on Jul 14, 2016
Content may be subject to copyright.
Display Reference Line
A-Z
B
Bucci, W. (2002). The Referential Process, Consciousness, and the Sense of Self. Psychoanalytic Inquiry,
22:766-793
(2002). Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 22:766-793
The Referential Process, Consciousness, and the Sense of Self
Wilma Bucci, Ph.D.
The concepts of multiple code theory and the referential process are examined in relation to levels
of awareness and the sense of self as characterized in recent work in neuropsychology by
Damasio. The juxtaposition of subsymbolic and symbolic systems in working memory, as this
operates in the referential process, is central to both consciousness and the sense of self. The roots
of pathology lie in dissociation within emotion schemas; this applies at different levels for all
forms of neurosis. The goal of psychoanalytic treatment is integration of dissociated schemas; this
requires activation of subsymbolic, including bodily experience, in the session itself, in relation to
symbolic representations of present and past experience. Implications concerning repression,
resistance, the primary process, the role of language in therapeutic change, and other
psychoanalytic concepts are discussed.
The Premise of Dual (or Multiple) Systems of Thought has Remained central to psychoanalytic theory
through its several transformations, while the nature of the contrasting systems has been repeatedly
redefined. In developing his successive models of the psychical apparatus, Freud shifted from qualities
(conscious, preconscious, unconscious) to structures (id, ego, superego); he then reunited these two forms
of organization
Wilma Bucci, Ph.D. is Director of Research and Professor, Derner Institute, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY.
- 766 -
uneasily in his final summary formulation (Freud, 1940). The polarities of the primary vs. secondary
processes of thought, and verbal vs. nonverbal processes have generally been seen as related to both the
qualities and agencies of mind. Correspondence among these dimensions has typically been assumed as a
“default” theoretical position; thus, the contents of the id are seen as unconscious, nonverbal, and
characterized by primary process thought, and the features of the ego as the converse of these. Analysts
also recognize that there may be unconscious functions in the ego; that there are organized unconscious
fantasies and systematic communication outside of the verbal mode; and that language may appear in
dreams and images in waking life; but they cannot account for these observations using the
metapsychology in any of its forms. Such inconsistencies constitute a dilemma for psychoanalytic theory
and “embarrass” the psychoanalytic methodology, as Arlow (1969) has written.
Elsewhere, I have introduced the systems of multiple code theory as accounting for the same types of
clinical observations as are covered in psychoanalytic theory, but as explaining these within the more
consistent framework provided by cognitive science (Bucci, 1997). The multiple code theory is based on
processes and forms of thought, rather than dimensions of consciousness or agencies of mind. Using
current work in neuropsychology, this paper will extend the concepts of multiple code theory as these relate
to the qualities of consciousness as well as to issues of self-representation that are central to the structural
model. This will permit elaboration of the clinical implications of multiple code theory, particularly in
relation to the development of pathology and the process of repair in treatment. It will also speak to some
of the inconsistencies in the psychoanalytic concepts.
The Multiple Code Theory
Humans represent and process information, including emotional information, in two basic formats: the
subsymbolic (or nonsymbolic), and the symbolic codes. The dominating distinction in this system is
between these subsymbolic and symbolic formats, the distinction between verbal and nonverbal modalities
is subordinate to this. The three systems (i.e., the subsymbolic, symbolic nonverbal, and the symbolic
verbal) are connected by the referential process, which links all types of nonverbal
- 767 -
representations to one another and to words. Emotion schemas—the psychic structures with which we are
centrally concerned—are made up of components of all three systems. Adaptive functioning depends on
integration of systems within the emotion schemas. Pathology is determined by dissociation among the
components of the emotion schemas and ineffective attempts at repair; different forms of pathology are
determined by dissociation of different levels and degrees. and the different ways in which the attempts at
repair misfire. The goal of psychotherapy may be understood as the reorganization of the dissociated and
distorted emotion schemas; change in the schemas as what we mean by structural change. Such change
occurs through the bidirectional effects of the referential process in the context of the therapeutic
relationship. Here is a brief outline of these components of the theory.
Symbolic Codes
The nonverbal and verbal symbolic codes are familiar to us as the modalities of images and words.
From an information processing perspective, symbols are defined as discrete entities with properties ef
reference and generativity; that is, symbols are entities that refer to other entities and that may be combined
to generate an infinite variety of new forms.
Language is the quintessential symbolic mode. Words are discrete entities that refer to other entities,
including images and other words, and that are combined in rule-governed ways to generate the myriad
varieties of linguistic forms that we speak or write. Images, like words, are discrete entities that refer to
other entities. They may be broken down into their elements and may be combined to create new forms, as
the police put together combinations of features to construct a composite visual image that approximates a
suspect's face. Images occur in all sensory modalities; in addition to visual images we may have auditory,
tactual, kinesthetic, and other sensory imagery, although sighted people tend to be less aware of these
modalities. Helen Keller (1908) knew the world directly through her “three trusty guides, touch, smell, and
taste” (p. 41), as well as through her experience of action and space, and had imagery in all these
modalities.
- 768 -
The Subsymbolic System
The subsymbolic system1 is less familiar conceptually and hard to describe technically, but is most familiar
to us in our daily lives; it is so ubiquitous and so ongoing that we generally do not distinguish it as thought.
Subsymbolic processing is characterized as formally “analogic,” processed as variation on continuous
dimensions, rather than generated through combining discrete elements as in symbolic forms. This is
systematic processing that occurs in motoric, visceral, and sensory forms, as sounds, smells, feelings of
many different sorts, rather than as symbols or words.2 The dimensions and metrics are specific to each
sensory modality—the feeling of the wind, the taste of a wine, the overtones of music. Such experiences
are communicable directly within the sensory modality itself, and indirectly through analogic
representations in other modalities. They are subjective but may also be shared among beings with similar
processing systems.
Subsymbolic processing is modeled in cognitive science by connectionist or parallel distributed
processing (PDP) systems (McClelland, Rumelhart, and Hinton, 1989; McClelland, Rumelhart, and
the PDP Research Group, 1989), with the features of dynamical systems, as I have outlined elsewhere
(Bucci, 1997).3 Subsymbolic “computations”
1 The term “subsymbolic” has been widely used in cognitive science to designate the form of processing described here. This
processing is subsymbolic in the sense of underlying symbolic representations, in an information processing sense; that is,
subsymbolic formats may be “chunked” into units that are represented symbolically. The prefix “sub” may be misleading, however,
as implying a lower or less complex level of organization. The term non symbolic is more neutral and might have been a better
choice to avoid any such implication. As is clear in my presentation of multiple coding, I see subsymbolic information as more
extensive and at least as complex as symbolic forms.
2 The possibility of a fourth system that would be characterized as “verbal subsymbolic” remains open to question. Paralinguistic
aspects of language including pausing rhythms and intonation patterns, and aspects of the sound of speech, for example, as in
onomatopoeia or more generally in poetry, may operate on a subsymbolic level, as may emotional vocalizations (e.g., sighing,
giggling), but the words of language themselves appear to be intrinsically digital and discrete elements. The operation of a verbal
nonsymbolic code needs to be further explored.
3 To review this briefly: A connectionist system is a network with a set of interconnected nodes. The theoretical connectionist
networks are designed to model the structure of neural networks, but are simpler than the actual physical (brain) systems, and retain
the status of psychological (mental) models. At any given time, each node is in a particular state of arousal, and the state of the
system is dependent on the level of arousal of each of the nodes, and on the patterns of interconnections and weights; these are
determined in large part by learning and experience. The pattern of interconnections and matrix of weights may be described as a
dynamical system. Given the input of particular states of arousal for each node, the system of connections and weights assigns new
states of arousal for each, which then function as new input. The system continues this iterative process. testing the match with the
desired target (entering a busy highway, turning a sail, recognizing a face or voice or wine) and evaluating the error, the difference
between the actual and desired state, until the error is small enough to accept the match.
- 769 -
underlay hundreds of common actions, from recognizing a familiar voice to entering a lane of traffic, and
account as well for complex skills in athletics, and for creative work in sciences and the arts. People in all
types of creative fields—painters, sculptors, musicians, dancers, geometers, physicists, and many others—
operate in highly complex, systematic, and differentiated ways in the subsymbolic mode. For all of us,
subsymbolic processing accounts for knowing one's own bodily states and responding to the facial and
bodily expressions of others without being able to measure them in discrete units or categorize them in
symbolic form. When we look at someone, we recognize their facial expression through a corresponding
feeling inside ourselves that we may not be able to express in words, but the feeling inside tells us what the
expression “means” in emotional terms. These are systematic forms of thought with their own processing
rules, different from symbolic processing but equally complex and organized, and equally worthy to be
recognized as “thought.”
We know this processing as intuition, the wisdom of the body, and in other related ways. The patient
and analyst communicate profoundly in this mode. Reik's (1948) concept of “listening with the third ear”
draws heavily on subsymbolic communication, as I have discussed in detail elsewhere (Bucci, 2001). In
operating without explicit intention or direction, subsymbolic processes and representations may appear to
operate off-line, in the background, without being attended to, and may be experienced as, in a sense,
“outside of oneself,” outside of the domain of the self over which one has intentional control. I'll examine
these features further below.
The Referential Process
The three systems, subsymbolic, symbolic nonverbal and symbolic verbal, with their different contents
and different organizing principles, are
- 770 -
connected—partially and to varying degrees—by the referential process. This process constitutes a central
human function that is necessary for adaptive functioning and that seems to operate smoothly in most
familiar, everyday contexts, but is actually quite partial and limited in its power. The subsymbolic sensory
and somatic representations can be expressed only indirectly by the discrete, abstract symbols of the verbal
code. The limitations of the referential process become apparent when one attempts to verbalize an
experience that one has never verbalized before, to describe a taste or smell, or to teach an athletic or
motoric skill, or when one struggles to express an emotion and can't “find the words.”
In connecting the analogic processes of the subsymbolic system to the discrete elements of the verbal
code, images play a pivotal role: they connect in their sensory, modality-bound aspects to the subsymbolic
mode. As discrete representational elements (nonverbal symbols), images connect to the symbols of the
verbal code. The organization of the emotion schemas, and their reorganization in treatment, depend on this
connecting process, as we shall see.
Emotion Schemas
Emotion schemas are the psychic structures with which psychoanalysis is centrally concerned. The
general concept of the schema is based on work in cognitive science by Bartlett (1932), Schank and
Abelson (1977), and others. Memory schemas incorporate stored knowledge of all types; they determine
how one sees the world and are, in turn, affected by each new perception. We see all things through the lens
of memory schemas; there is no other way, no other view of reality outside of this lens. Emotion schemas
are specific types of memory schemas, which are built and rebuilt through repeated interactions with
mother-other from the beginning of life, and which constitute one's knowledge of one's self in relation to
the interpersonal world. Like all memory schemas, the emotion schemas include components of all
processing systems—nonverbal subsymbolic, nonverbal symbolic, and verbal symbolic, but are more
strongly dominated by sensory and bodily representations and processes than other knowledge schemas.
The subsymbolic sensory, somatic, and motoric representations constitute the affective core of the emotion
schema—the basis on which the organization of the schema is initially built.
- 771 -
The affective core is the constant that identifies emotional events and that clusters them in categories
across varying contexts and contents. Thus, we may feel the same sort of feeling, the same emotion, the
same bodily and cognitive functions, with different people, in different places and times. The subsymbolic
processes of the affective core organize and determine interpersonal life in ways that are sometimes not
apparent within symbolic modes. The objects and settings of time and place constitute the specific contexts
and contents of the emotion schemas, that continue to be elaborated throughout life. One's representation of
one's self in one's interpersonal world is continuously developed in this way. Schemas can be highly
complex and interrelated with one another. A schema of anger may be tightly connected in one individual's
emotional memory system with a schema of fear or a schema of control or a schema of sexual love, or with
all of these.
The structure of the schema provides the conceptual basis for the processes of transference (and
countertransference). The patient plays out with the analyst the expectations and responses encapsulated in
the emotion schema (as the analyst necessarily does—perhaps in a different way—with the patient).
Emotion Schemas and Dispositional Representations: The Neurological
Base
The concepts of emotional information processing and the emotion schemas relate to current views of
emotions as including cognitive, physiological, motoric, and motivational components, as well as
subjective feeling states (Scherer, 1984; Lang, 1994; Bucci, 1997). The psychological structure of the
emotion schema as outlined here is also compatible with current work in neuropsychology. Damasio's
notion of dispositional representations, in particular, provides a specific neurological basis for the emotion
schema. For Damasio, all knowledge, including the organization of the emotions, is contained in what he
terms “dispositional representations.” These are sets of dormant firing potentialities in small ensembles of
neurons or “convergence zones” that may be distributed all over the brain, and that come to life “when
neurons fire, with a particular pattern, at certain rates, for a certain amount of time, and toward a particular
target which happens to be another ensemble of
- 772 -
neurons” (1994, 103-104).4 When dispositional representations are activated, they can have a range of
results; they can fire other dispositional representations to which they are related in various ways; they can
generate imagery by firing back to sensory cortices; and they can generate movements, as well as direct the
internal biochemical operations of the endocrine system, immune system, and viscera.
The dispositional representations constitute our full store of knowledge, both innate and acquired by
experience. They include representations of bodily experience and imagery, and may include verbal forms
as well. Some dispositional representations, primarily in the hypothalamus, brain stem, and limbic system,
are innate; these control metabolism, chemical, and hormonal functions, and some motoric responses, but
generally do not become images. Others are acquired, determined by life experiences that cause
modifications in higher order cortices and gray matter nuclei below the cortical level. The innate
dispositional representations, the circuitry of the limbic system and related structures, interact with,
interfere with, or support the newer circuitry that represents acquired experience. The interaction affects
what is learned and how what is learned can be used.
The innate dispositional representations controlling biochemical and motoric functions constitute the
component of the emotion schema that I have termed the affective core, and are largely subsymbolic; the
repeated interactions with others in various contexts determine what is acquired. Emotional development is
based on connecting the largely innate subsymbolic processes of the affective core to the representations of
people and places registered in imagistic, and later, to some extent, in verbal form. Through operation of
the affective core, the events of one's experience are evaluated and distinguished as supporting or
interfering in different ways with the sensory and somatic functions that serve to maintain life; by this
means, the events of life build the interpersonal meaning for the arousal that is experienced.
4 The dispositional representations as defined by Damasio operate on a different explanatory level from the connectionist notions of
neural networks. Dispositional representations are defined as neurophysiological structures whereas the connectionist neural
networks have the status of psychological constructs, as discussed above. Subsymbolic processing, as outlined in multiple coding,
is modeled specifically by connectionist systems, whereas dispositional representations may be understood as incorporating
information in symbolic as well as subsymbolic forms.
- 773 -
Levels of Consciousness and Self-Representation
Based on his neurological observations, Damasio has proposed a theory that concerns the
interdependence between consciousness and the sense of self, and the relationship of these dimensions to
emotions and feelings. Drawing on this theory, we can extend the concepts of the multiple code theory,
particularly the notions of the referential process and the emotion schemas, in relation to levels of
consciousness and forms of self-representation. As outlined in Table 1, Damasio defines three major
categories of awareness and three corresponding types of self-representation.
Nonconscious Processing and the Proto-Self
Damasio's central thesis, from which the rest of his system follows, is that the biological roots of
consciousness and the deep roots of the self are to be found in the ensemble of brain devices, the
disposition representations, that continuously and nonconsciously maintain the body state within the
narrow range and relative stability required for survival. Damasio calls the state of activity within these
dispositional representations the “proto-self,” the nonconscious forerunner for the eonscious levels. There
may be several levels of nonconscious states associated with the operation of the proto-self. These range
from the deepest level of disruption of wakefulness, as seen, for example, in coma, to levels of defective
minimal attention/behavior in which wakefulness is preserved, as in absence seizures, and to the most
shallow level of the nonconscious state, as, for example, in epileptic automatisms. It is an important
implication of Damasio's observations that consciousness and attention do not necessarily correspond.
There may be states characterized as nonconscious but in which low-level attention is preserved; the
individual is awake and retains a basic ability to attend to objects and capacity to navigate in space, but the
sense of self and sense of knowing are suspended. As Damasio vividly describes, the patient can pick up a
cup of coffee, drink from it, and walk around the room, but his face has no expression, he does not respond
to his name. He is “both there and not there, certainly awake, attentive in part, behaving for sure, bodily
present but personally unaccounted for, absent without leave” (Damasio, 1999, p. 6).
- 774 -
TABLE 1 Consciousness, Sense of Self, and Emotions and Feelings*
State of Consciousness State of Self State of Emotion
Nonconscious Proto-self—based on neural maps
representing ongoing aspects of the
body; ensemble of brain devices
that continuously and
nonconsciously maintain the body
state within the range required for
survival
Having an emotion—manifest as
observable behaviors; well-orchestrated
set of responses
immediate action solution
to a problem
Having a feeling (of an emotion)—manifest
as internal representations; facilitates
alertness to the problem
(“first-order accounts”)
Core consciousness—
representation of an object, an
organism, and the relationship
between them
Core self—transient imaged
account of how the organism is
affected by the processing of an
object
Knowing a feeling—facilitates planning of
new responses, specific to the problem
situation (“second-order accounts”)
Extended consciousness—when
both an immediate object (which
may be an external or internal
event) and objects from autobio
memory simultaneously generate
core consciousness
Autobiographical self—traditional
notion of self, built on the schemas
of autobiographical memory,
linked to concepts of identity and
person-hood
Operates at multiple levels of complexity;
incorporating past events,
fantasies of the future,
all the contents of
autobiographical memory
* Based on Damasio (1994, 1999).
- 775 -
Core Consciousness and the Core Self
Damasio's next major hypothesis is that consciousness—noticing, being aware—begins as the feeling
of what happens within the organism when the organism, the proto-self, interacts with an object. Just as
there are levels of nonconscious states, Damasio identifies two major levels or degrees of consciousness,
“core” and “extended” consciousness. The level that Damasio terms “core consciousness” depends on
activation of dispositional representations that incorporate an object, an organism (the proto-self), and the
relationship between them. It occurs “when the brain forms an imaged, nonverbal, second-order account of
how the organism is causally affected by the processing of an object” (Damasio, 1999, p. 192). Core
consciousness is a simple biological phenomenon created in pulses as objects trigger the modification of
the proto-self. Its continuity is produced by the endless flow of images of objects from within and without,
with each object producing a modified proto-self to meet the next, and with multiple objects occurring
synchronously. The triggering object can be perceived or recalled; it can be external or within the body
boundaries (e.g., pain); it can be an emotion, a memory or an immediate event. There is a sense of self in
core consciousness, the core self, but this is a transient entity, constantly re-created for each object with
which the brain interacts (Damasio, 1999).
Extended Consciousness and the Autobiographical Self
Extended consciousness is built on the foundation of core consciousness, extended in time and space.
It includes memories of the past, fantasies of the future, and the changing landscapes of one's life. This is a
complex biological phenomenon with several levels of organization that evolve across the lifetime of the
organism. The self that is formed through extended consciousness and that views the panorama of
autobiographical memory is the autobiographical self. This is the traditional notion of self, linked to the
ideas of identity and personhood, built out of the unique experiences that characterize an individual's life.
In neurological terms, the autobiographical self is a process of coordinated activation and display of
personal memories, based on a continuously reactivated multisite network of dispositional representations.
The images that represent those memories explicitly are exhibited in multiple
- 776 -
sensory cortices, and they are held over time by working memory. The memories and anticipations are
treated as any other objects and become known to the simple core self by generating their own pulses of
core consciousness (p. 221). Thus, to summarize: “Extended consciousness occurs when working memory
holds in place, simultaneously, both a particular object and the autobiographical self, in other words when
both a particular object and the objects in one's autobiography simultaneously generate core consciousness”
(1999, p. 222).
Emotions, Feelings, and the Qualities of Thought
Damasio's definitions of emotions and feelings are intrinsically related to the nonconscious-conscious
axis. He distinguishes states of emotion, feeling, and knowing, with gradations and variations associated
with each.
Having an Emotion
In Damasio's system, emotions5 are defined as essentially regulatory mechanisms that operate
typically in a nonconscious mode. They are specific, well-orchestrated sets of biological responses that may
involve bodily and cognitive functions, that are triggered by an initiating stimulus, and that begin to solve
the problem triggered by the stimulus, to maintain the organism within the narrow homeostatic range
capable of supporting survival. Functions related to body state include autonomic activation, endocrine and
other chemical responses, immune system effects, and activation of muscles throughout the body, including
changes in body posture and movements of face and limbs. Functions related to mental state include wired-
in behaviors such as bonding, nurturing, playing, and exploring; inhibition or enhancement of body signals
and alteration of their pleasant or unpleasant qualities; and changes in mode
5 The terms “emotion,” “feeling,” and “affect” have been given a wide range of different, even conflicting definitions throughout
the emotion literature. The terms “emotion” and “feeling” are used here specifically as defined by Damasio within his theoretical
framework; the terms “affective core” and “emotion schema” are used as defined within the theoretical network of multiple coding;
the connections between these two sets of concepts are explicated throughout this paper.
- 777 -
of processing, such as speeding up or slowing down, or sharpening or blurring of focus. These functions are
based largely on the dispositional representations that make up the proto-self.
Many of the bodily functions are observable to others regardless of the level of awareness of the
individual experiencing the emotional state: skin flushing or becoming pale, muscles tensing in fear, or
slumping in dejection. The cognitive changes may also be observable, as in the actions associated with the
wired-in behaviors, or the racing of thought and speech in manic phases, and the converse in depressive
states. These responses may be recognized by an observer even when the person in whom the state is
activated is not aware of these effects.
Knowing a Feeling
The public and physical indicators of the emotional state have an inwardly directed and private face,
which Damasio terms “feelings,” and which have the potential to become conscious, to become known to
the individual. The knowing of feelings is the property of core consciousness, the agency of the core self.
The knowing may occur on several levels: as awareness of a bodily change—heart pounding, mouth
becoming dry, stomach tightening; as an immediate eruption of anger, or terror, or desire, experienced as
such, leading often to immediate action, without reflection; or with broader meanings, leading to more
complex responses.
Knowing a feeling is the gateway to the emotion schemas, or dispositional representations, of extended
consciousness, the agency of the autobiographical self, built out of sensory and somatic components as
these occur in the multiple complex events of life. While the innate physiological components of an
emotion schema are shared acrcss humans and other species as well, the contents and contexts of the
schema are unique, determined by the events of each individual's life.
Implications Concerning Pathology and Treatment: Levels of Functional
Dissociation
Based on these concepts, we can now extend the multiple code formulation of the nature of pathology.
Adaptive functioning depends on
- 778 -
connections within emotion schemas, that is, on connections between the innate mechanisms of the
affective core that underlie the organism's satisfaction and survival, registered in subsymbolic forms and
playing out largely on unconscious levels, and the contents of the schema, registered in the symbolic mode.
Only with such integrated schemas can new information derived from interaction with others be properly
classified or reclassified as supporting or interfering with the regulatory functions of life, so that
appropriate responses are elicited. Thus, Damasio says,
In those personalities that appear to us as most harmonious and mature from the point of view of their
standard responses, I imagine that the multiple control sites are interconnected so that responses can be
organized, at varied degrees of complexity, some involving the recruitment of just a few brain sites, others
requiring a concerted large scale operation [1999, p. 223].
Conversely, different forms of pathology are characterized by dissociations at particular levels among
the multiple sites; these dissociations may have neurological or functional etiology. The disorders on which
Damasio focuses are primarily those with a neurological basis: several variants of amnesia, relatively early
stages of Alzheimer's, and some of the strange and exotic disorders of which Oliver Sacks has written.
Damasio also suggests that mania may involve an expanded autobiographical self; depression a diminished
one.
I would like to emphasize the functional aspects of dissociation here and to extend them beyond
Damasio's formulation. Dissociation can occur at multiple levels within the distributed multisite
dispositional representations that constitute the emotion schemas, blocking the intake of new information
and the eliciting of appropriate responses.
The first level of functional dissociation that may occur within the emotion schemas involves failure of
connection of bodily experience and symbolic representation, at the core level. An emotion schema is
activated by a triggering stimulus; the biological and expressive components of a primary emotion, both
bodily and mental, play out, but they are not experienced as related to the objects and events that constitute
the triggering stimulus or in relation to the self. The individual is not aware of the emotion, does not claim
or own it; it is not happening to one's self. In trauma patients, for example, there may be functional
dissociation at
- 779 -
this level—loss of the feeling of what happens as happening to one's own bodily self.
The next level of dissociation that may occur within the emotion schema involves pulses of activation
of core consciousness without activation of extended consciousness. Thus we may be conscious of an
object or event in the present without retrieval and activation of elements of autobiographical memory in
working memory. At this level of dissociation, there is a self that is carrying out the activity, but it is not
the integrated self of identity and personhood. The feeling is experienced as happening to one's self, but its
meaning is not recognized.
The next and most complex level of dissociation involves varying levels of extended consciousness,
connecting to some elements of autobiographical memory within an emotion schema, while others are
blocked off. I suggest that in most neurotic patients, most of the time, we are likely to see partial
impairments of autobiographical memory. The self as claiming one's experience is diminished in particular
respects, while aspects of extended consciousness and personhood remain.
Development of Pathology
The dissociations within the emotion schemas may occur through a range of developmental means.
The somatic and sensory components of some events—a rage directed at the caretaker, a reaction to a
caretaker's rage, a fear of abandonment and annihilation, or, on other levels, the terrors of war or the pain of
a physical illness—may be experienced by a young child as potentially overwhelming, even threatening his
or her survival. One usually cannot control the orchestrated playing out of the subsymbolic components of
the schema. The biological changes associated with the affective core—changes in heart rate or blood
pressure or respiration or skin response, or the racing or slowing down of the mind—play out directly in
response to a triggering event. Humans (and presumably other organisms) may then resort to a variety of
alternative means to handle the arousal of intolerable affect—to prevent or reduce it in some way.
Attempts at Avoidance
One possibility is avoidance. One can run away or turn away from the triggering stimulus—as we
move away when a snake crosses the path.
- 780 -
or stay away from other threatening situations, when we can. One avoids the trigger, to avoid the activation
of the affective core. When the trigger is internal—when a thought or memory emerges that begins to
arouse the painful affective core—one can attempt to avoid the pain by avoiding the thought. One turns
attention away from the activating image or memory, tries to stop thinking about it. In effect, on some
implicit mental level, one says to oneself “Don't go there,” and uses a variety of means to try to stay away.
Such avoidance may reduce the extended consciousness of the painful event, and may reduce the core
consciousness as well. This may also in some cases actually reduce the activation of the physiological and
behavioral components of the schema—although they are likely to continue to play out to some degree. The
operation of avoidance in life and in memory will interact:
At home they tried to avoid looking at the photographs and mementos scattered around their apartment,
objects as dangerous as broken glass…. Although they developed the habit of tunnel vision, and went from
room to room with the exaggerated deliberation of the blind, there were always unguarded moments when
they suddenly confronted the smiling face of the vanished son, or daughter-in-law, or grandchild…. Then
memory tore the scabs off their wounds [Thornton, 1987, p. 14].
Through the activation of the affective core in different contexts, not recognized or understood, the events
and images associated with the painful threatening affect expand. The categories of objects of the schema
may broaden widely; one avoids not only the photographs, but also the room they are in, and the apartment,
and eventually the town.
Compensatory Attempts at Repair
Throughout life, if a triggering stimulus activates the painful emotion schema, with its biological and
cognitive and behavioral components, but the stimulus is not recognized, the individual will try to provide
meaning for the activated state, to know “why I feel this way.” The attempt to establish substitute meaning,
while avoiding knowledge of the actual aroused schema or triggering event, is likely to be destructive in
itself, appearing in such forms as somatization, displacement, or acting out. The nature of pathology is
determined by both the avoidant
- 781 -
dissociation and the particular forms of substitute symbolizing that are imposed. A woman who was abused
sexually as a child has a variety of somatic symptoms and repeatedly visits physicians. She may become
sexually active in a self-destructive way, or may be unable to enjoy sexual experience, even in a loving
relationship. She may remember occurrences of the abuse, but reports them in a neutral way, without affect.
The person who is consumed with rage, without a clear image of its object, will generate an object and a
cause to provide meaning for the overwhelming wish to attack. Fantasies and symbolic structures,
including political and religious systems, may operate in this way. The categories of objects of displaced
rage may extend to whole countries, whole civilizations, as we saw on September 11, 2001 in New York
City and Washington, DC.
For persons who experience a traumatic event, such as the people who were near the World Trade
Center on that day, the emotional effects will depend on the schemas with which they experience the world
and their customary compensatory modes. The event will activate a range of schemas with their affective
cores; some may be understood in relation to this terrible actual event; some may have other meanings, or
be given other meanings. When the new triggering event is itself traumatic, rather than primarily evocative
of old traumas, new dissociations will occur on top of old ones. Therapists working in the New York City
area noted, following the attack, a substantial increase in the flow of patients coming into treatment with
issues that were manifestly unrelated to the attack. These patients might, in some cases, have referred to the
attack, but without emotion, while expressing considerable distress about old difficulties now flaring up, or
new problems.
Phases of the Referential Process: Reconstruction of the Schema
Treatment fundamentally involves new integration within the dissociated and distorted emotion
schemas. This is particularly difficult because the inherently threatening nature of the affective core
restricts the nature of the information that can be accepted in the treatment situation, as in life. The
difficulty is compounded by the dissociation from specific symbolic contents of the schema, the
establishment of spurious substitute meanings, and the broadening of the sets of triggering events. The
catch-22 is
- 782 -
that the painful arousal that occurs when the schema is activated is real. The person does, in a sense, take in
new information each time the schema is activated, but this new information is reinforcing rather than
corrective. This is a reformulation of the “vicious circle” of which Strachey (1934) has written. The painful
physical excitation, in trace form, serves as continuous reinforcement of the dissociation, and continuous
reinforcement of the spurious solution with its broadening neurotic range.
Elsewhere I have formulated the therapeutic process in psychoanalysis in the terms of the referential
process: beginning with arousal of emotional experience in sensory and bodily form; leading then to
emergence of an image associated with the emotion schema and expression of this in a verbal narrative;
leading then to reflection, and, ultimately, optimally, to reorganization of the contents of the schema itself.
The phases of the referential process occur repeatedly, within a session and across a treatment (Bucci,
1997, 2001, in press). Based on Damasio's formulation, we can now examine the phases of the referential
process in relation to both the emergence of consciousness and the emergence of the self as owning the
experience.
Arousal of Emotional Experience in Subsymbolic Form
The first phase involves activation of the emotion schema in the session itself. The patient may show
behavioral, physiological, or cognitive signs of the emotion but without knowing the emotion, without
being aware of it as a function of one's self. In Damasio's terms, the dispositional representations of the
nonconscious proto-self are dominant in this phase.
In a couples therapy session, the wife moves to the far side of her chair, and tightens and tenses her
body when her husband complains about her lack of sexual interest.
Emergence of Imagery—From Protosymbolic to Symbolic Forms
Patients may experience the sensory and somatic components of the schema, dissociated from the
objects and images that provide the emotional meaning for the activated state, and may begin to talk about
these experiences rather than to express them bodily; or they may describe details in the current
environment or other objects and events that are part of the schema.
- 783 -
In a formal sense, these responses to present feelings and events, or actions in the present, function as
early or partial symbols, or “protosymbols” (Bucci, in press), with some, but not all, the features of the
symbolic mode. They are like symbols in that they are discrete entities that categorize or chunk the
analogic representational field into finite units. They may also be “things in themselves,” motoric or
sensory components of the presently activated schema, rather than representations of it, thus perhaps
standing for the schema itself in a metonymic rather than metaphoric way. The analyst's presence, the
experiences and responses activated in the transference, enactments of all kinds, and certain types of bodily
experience, may be early symbols or protosymbols of this sort.
In the couples therapy, the therapist notices the wife's posture and movements and says to her: “When
he spoke just now, you moved away to the corner of the chair, as far as you could, and clenched up as if
you were protecting yourself.” The movement as marked by the therapist became an early form of symbol
for the wife, activating core consciousness; she becomes aware of her bodily position, where she is sitting
and her inner state of tension. This would mark the beginning of a perturbation in the flow of the habitual
emotion schema of abuse and fear.
Symbolic Narrative Phase—From Imagery to Words
If the first phases are successfully negotiated, if the referential process is operating effectively, the
arousal of an emotion schema will activate images, not only of the here and now but also of the person's
life, her autobiographical memory, connected to the affective core. These may be displaced objects, but
have the value of operating within the symbolic mode. The patient thinks of a fantasy, an episode, a
memory, a dream—which perhaps she did not expect to tell—and tells it in narrative form, often without
knowing why it came to mind or what it means to her.
The narratives the patient tells in free association may now be seen as metaphors representing aspects
of the emotion schemas. They may first represent the distorted schemas in which displacements have
occurred. The distortions and displacements, with their derivative meanings, are useful information
concerning the path of development of the pathological schema. Eventually the patient may reach back to
the earlier, prototypal stories of her life.
- 784 -
The retrieval of a memory or fantasy while the patient is in a state of arousal precisely involves the
first levels of extended consciousness—representations of the autobiographical self, in relation to the pulses
of core consciousness that include the representations of present experiences and the bodily self, activated
in working memory. While the patient is engaged in the story, she may not as yet recognize its extended
meaning; the major aspects of autobiographical memory remain dissociated.
In the couples therapy the wife becomes aware that she is feeling afraid now. She connects the way she
is feeling in the session to the way she feels at home with her husband. Someone, the therapist, has
witnessed her expressions of fear of her husband; she now begins to be a witness of herself.
Phase of Working Through and Reflection—Continued Elaboration of the
Contents of the Schema
The schema that is represented in the enactment or retrieved memory is the patient's vision of her
current interpersonal world—incorporating expectations that are invalid and maladaptive. The analyst may
see some of the structure of the emotion schema that the patient does not see. The opportunity for useful
interpretation is here. In the reflection, new meanings emerge. This is the further opening and making
available the networks of extended consciousness, in Damasio's terms, building the agency of the
autobiographical self.
The wife, now in individual therapy, remembers related events in her early life with her first family as
well as in her marriage, and retrieves further aspects of her schema of fear—that she feels powerless and
alone, and that being persecuted and abused is a way she has accepted to feel less alone. As she recognizes
her new interpersonal context and her own adult powers, she gradually comes to respond differently,
bodily and emotionally, to the analyst and to her husband.
Clinical and Theoretical Implications
Change in an emotion schema requires simultaneous activation of bodily representation, present
imagery, and representations of the past. In Damasio's terms, this may be formulated as enabling extended
- 785 -
consciousness to occur: activation of representations of the autobiographical self—fantasies, memories,
episodes, dreams—in relation to the pulses of core consciousness that include the representations of the
bodily self, all of this activated in working memory. In terms of multiple code theory, this plays out as the
operation of the referential process: activation of the subsymbolic bodily and sensory experience of the
affective core in the session; associated with ongoing events in the therapeutic relationship; triggering
memories of the past; leading optimally to changes in the emotional meaning of the activated imagery, and
modulation of the bodily and emotional responses themselves.
This account has a number of implications that should be emphasized in relation to the explanatory
concepts of metapsychology. The major implications of this formulation is an emphasis on dissociation
rather than repression as the basic process of defense and as constituting the roots of pathology. Other
points follow from this: an emphasis on the activation of affective experience in the session rather than the
inhibition of desire or drive; revisions of a number of psychoanalytic concepts such as primary process
thought, regression, and resistance; a reexamination of the role of language in bringing about therapeutic
change; and a new perspective on the relationship between consciousness and the representation of the
self.
Dissociation Versus Repression
Contents that are “warded off” are understood psychologically as dissociated rather than out of
awareness; this applies for all forms of neurosis, not only for conditions of trauma and abuse. This is a
basic premise of multiple code theory with Damasio's observations providing a new understanding of this
point. Memories associated with an activated schema may come into awareness but not as connected to the
painful bodily experience of the affective core; conversely, bodily experiences may be in awareness, but
without being associated to objects, in memory or in the present, or they may be given displaced meanings.
The recognition of levels of consciousness is relevant here. Thus we can speak of components of the
schema in the present as coming into core consciousness, but not connected to the elements of memory that
would bring them into extended consciousness. Conversely experiences of autobiographical memory may
be retrieved without connecting to present affective experience. We can understand the intellectualizing
- 786 -
patient, or the patient who tells stories of events that appear to be dramatic and vivid but that somehow lack
emotional connection, in terms of particular types of dissociation within the emotion schema.
Inhibition Versus Arousal
An important distinction needs to be emphasized here. While pathology is defined fundamentally in
terms of dissociation rather than repression, the repair of pathology requires some degree of extended
consciousness. This is a crucial implication of the theory of the referential process, supported and
elaborated by Damasio's formulation. The emotion schema can be changed only to the extent that
experiences in the present and memories of the past are held in working memory simultaneously with the
pulses of core consciousness that depend on activation of the bodily components of the schema.
The activation of the dissociated, painful experience in the session itself is central to the therapeutic
process. This is a very different perspective from the metapsychological principle that structure depends on
the inhibition of drive, or desire. The implications of this point for psychoanalytic technique are potentially
broad and need to be explored. In the session, the threatening dissociated affect must be activated to some
degree, but in trace form, regulated sufficiently so as not to trigger new avoidance, and with some
transformation of meaning. The questions of how much and when to activate, or to permit this activation,
so as to repair the dissociation rather than to reinforce it, must be addressed specifically for each patient.
The transference plays a unique role in this respect. The power of the transference is in the evocation of the
patient's emotion schema in relation to the analyst in the here and now. The analyst may be recognized as
“standing for” other objects, but the persona of the analyst is a present factor that changes the balance and
context of the interaction. (To the extent that the change in the emotion schema incorporates internalization
of the new, real persona, the question arises of whether transference can ever—or should ever—be fully
resolved.)
New Perspectives on the Primary Process and Related Concepts
In focusing on processes rather than on psychical qualities or agencies, and in introducing the
particular mechanisms of condensation and
- 787 -
displacement, Freud's concept of the primary and secondary processes may be seen as a precursor of the
multiple coding formulation, but with important differences. The primary process was conceptulized as the
mode of operation of the unconscious system or the id, associated with the free flow of psychical energy,
and leading to hallucinatory satisfaction of wishes. Subsymbolic processing is systematic information
processing, with organizational principles of its own, that is broadly applicable in many adaptive contexts,
that may achieve high levels of complexity, that may occur within awareness as well as in the unconscious
mode, and that is necessary for human functioning, as it is for all species, throughout life. It is not driven by
wish fulfillment any more than is any other form of thought, and is not inherently disorganized, infantile, or
regressed.
Once subsymbolic processing is recognized as systematic and organized thought—not verbal, not
symbolic, but organized nonetheless—it follows that concepts such as regression and resistance need to be
revised as well. The operations of the referential process are steps on the way to accessing components of
the aroused emotion schema that have been dissociated. These operations include functions that have been
characterized as regressive, such as focus on somatic experience, enactments, and use of imagery. What has
been termed “regression,” even “in the service of the ego,” and perhaps, in a different way, what has been
termed “malignant regression,” does not involve moving to a lower or earlier mode of processing, but,
rather involves connecting to and using processes outside of the verbal, and even outside of the symbolic
mode. The patient feels that she is hot, or her stomach hurts, or the therapist's office smells strange; then
she becomes aware that she is angry or afraid; then she may come to recognize what it is in the current
situation that has triggered her fear. The recognition that the bodily activation is occurring provides an
opening to the development of further emotional meaning. Other expressions that have traditionally been
characterized as resistance may play a similar role, such as apparently irrelevant, even obsessive
descriptions of details in the immediate environment or in past events, and many types of derivative and
displaced narratives, as well as enactments. This approach supports Freud's later view of resistance as a
means of reaching the repressed, rather than an obstacle to the progress of treatment; but is shifted here to
the multiple code emphasis on reconstruction of dissociated schemas.
- 788 -
The Role of Language
Psychoanalysis—the “talking cure”—has assumed a privileged role for language in bringing about
change. If, however, change ultimately requires connection to bodily experience that has been dissociated,
and redirection of such experience, it is possible that verbal interventions are not the necessary, nor even
the optimal, therapeutic vehicle.
The difficulties in using verbal instructions to direct and change subsymbolic bodily functions are
apparent to anyone who has ever taken a dance lesson or a tennis lesson; how much more complex and
difficult is this process for changes in the emotion schemas. Music, dance, and art therapies are all designed
to access the subsymbolic system directly; on a different level, so is the currently popular eye-movement
therapy, and on still another level, so is yoga and meditation. If we take seriously the endogenous
organization of the subsymbolic and symbolic nonverbal systems, we need to examine the degree to which
the multiple nonverbal modes of communication themselves may be sufficient to bring about therapeutic
change.
At the same time, we also need to recognize the power of the verbal mode in enlarging the space of
working memory, which is the basis for extended consciousness, and the arena in which the habitual flow
of a pathological schema can most directly be perturbed. From a cognitive perspective, symbols have the
power to categorize and focus experience, enabling the speaker to retrieve and hold more of the selected
information in working memory. Language may be the most efficient mechanism for categorizing the flow
of experience, although language, of course, carries the corollary negative effect of excluding material that
is not selected, thus reducing exploration. Language is also the vehicle of logical analysis, enabling both
explicit discriminations between events that have been inaccurately associated, and generalizing over
instances not previously seen as associated. Finally, verbal expressions may have special powers to access
certain types of information stored in autobiographical memory. It is most likely that both subsymbolic and
symbolic forms of connection are needed: subsymbolic processing facilitates activation of an emotion
schema with its affective core; verbal intervention facilitates revision of displaced and distorted meanings.
The specific role of verbalization in the reconstruction process remains open to question; what seems clear
is that language alone is not sufficient to bring about change.
- 789 -
Relationship Among Processes, Qualities, and Structures of Mind: An
Extension of Damasio's Theory
Damasio's premise regarding the relation of bodily experience to self-representation is, in a sense, the
reverse of the psychoanalytic position. The term id or “das Es,” first used by Freud in 1923, is derived
indirectly from Nietzsche's usage, referring to “whatever in our nature is impersonal, and … subject to
natural law” (LaPlanche and Pontalis, 1973, p. 197). From Damasio's perspective, however, the type of
bodily experience that might be characterized as id contents are the core of the self, the central basis for the
proto-self, on which all forms of self-representation must build.
This opposition is, however, only apparent. In Damasio's hypothesis, bodily representation is necessary
but not sufficient for self-representation beyond the proto-self. The emergence of the core or
autobiographical selves depends on the juxtaposition of bodily representations with representations of
objects (in memory and in the present). The self we own and claim is not a property of one or the other type
of content, but of their connection. Mental representations of objects that are not connected to the proto-self
are part of “the other” (the it), as are bodily representations not juxtaposed to objects.
We can now also return to the question, which remains unresolved within psychoanalytic theory,
concerning the relationship between the qualities and agencies or structures of mind. For Damasio, these
functions are essentially interdependent, as we have seen. This has also been the default position in the
psychoanalytic literature, but with the many problems referred to above.
Here I would like to propose a possible extension of Damasio's theory of the basis of consciousness,
and, by implication, a parial differentiation of the theory of the emergence of consciousness from the theory
of the emergence of the self. While both consciousness and self-representation may rest, to a large extent,
on representations of the bedily self, it seems possible that these are nevertheless separate dimensions that
intersect only partially. Whereas integrated emotion schemas, including self schemas, may be necessarily
rooted in bodily experience, the emergence of consciousness may have broader roots.
There is some indication within Damasio's work itself that his basic hypothesis concerning the
emergence of consciousness might be extended to refer not only to bodily experience on the one hand and
entities
- 790 -
outside of oneself on the other, but more broadly, to the juxtaposition in working memory of diverse
representational structures and processes, including subsymbolic and symbolic (or protosymbolic) formats.
Thus Damasio shows that specific bodily events, such as pains or movements or sensory experiences, may
themselves serve as objects activating core consciousness. Here consciousness may arise through
juxtaposition of the ongoing flow of bodily experience, which would be subsymbolic, to specific
experiences also within the body boundaries, which would have symbolic (or protosymbolic) status,
without requiring connection to contents outside of the body.
Conversely, there are aspects of external experience that we seem to be aware of without connection to
any aspect of the body self; these may involve memory schemas that include a broad range of contents,
such as the intricacies of analytic philosophy, nuclear physics, or corporate or estate law. We are conscious
as we read such material; some of us may sometimes even read such material with comprehension. Such
comprehension, which we may understand in terms of extended consciousness, may be seen as a function
of relating the new material to structures or schemas already formed. These memory schemas may include
subsymbolic or imagistic structures, and may, but do not necessarily, include components that are bodily in
form.6 These and many other questions concerning the relationships among modes of information
processing, consciousness, and the sense of self remain to be explored using current work in cognitive
science and neuroscience as well as the observations of psychoanalysis.
Conclusions and Questions: Goals of Psychoanalytic Treatment
The interaction of systems has been the essential and central principle of psychoanalysis from the
beginning (to make the unconscious conscious:
6 The existence and nature of subsymbolic structures underlying comprehension of logical, scientific and mathematical
relationships are vividly illustrated in Hadamard's interviews with Poincaré, Einstein, and others, discussed in Bucci (1997).
Einstein specifically included bodily experience along with other types of experience as underlying his creative work: “The
psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be
‘voluntarily’ reproduced and combined…. The above mentioned elements are, in my case, of visual and some of muscular type”
(quoted in Hadamard. 1949. pp. 142-143).
- 791 -
to place ego where id has been). We are carrying forward this fundamental goal, but with redefinition of the
componem systems and with the recognition that connection does not mean replacement of one system by
another. As subsymbolic and symbolic representations become connected in integrated schemas, both
formats change and increase in complexity, and optimally this change and growth continues throughout
life.
The human psychical apparatus encompasses multiple diverse structures, processes, and qualities of
thought; we all live with multiple types of dissociation; adaptive functioning depends on adequate
integration of these multiple diverse forms; the access to bodily experience is central in such adaptive
integration. Psychoanalysis has the potential to repair dissociations at a deeper level than other forms of
therapy, including the building of new connections between subsymbolic bodily experience and symbolic
aspects of thought.
References
Arlow, J. A. (1969), Unconscious fantasy and disturbances of conscious experience. Psychoanal Q., 38:1-
27.[]
Bartlett, F. C. (1932), Remembering. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Bucci, W. (1997), Psychoanalysis and Cognitive Science. New York: Guilford Press.
Bucci, W. (2001), Pathways of emotional communication. Psychoanal. Inq., 20:40-70.[]
Bucci, W. (in press), From subsymbolic to symbolic—and back: Therapeutic impact of the referential
process. In: Symbolization and Desymbolization: Essays in Honor of Norbert Freedman, ed. R. Lasky,
New York: Other Press.
Damasio, A. R. (1994), Descartes' Error. New York: Avon Books.
Damasio, A. R. (1999), The Feeling of What Happens. New York: Harcourt Brace.
Freud, S. (1940), An outline of psycho-analysis. Standard Edition. 23:144-207, London: Hogarth Press,
1964.
Hadamard, J. (1949), An Essay on the Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Fiela. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Keller, H. (1908), The World I Live In. New York: Century.
Lang, P. J. (1994), The varieties of emotional experience: A meditation on James-Lange theory.
Psychoanal. Rev., 101:211-221.
LaPlanche, J. & Pontalis, J. B. (1973), The Language of Psychoanalysis. New York: Norton.[]
McClelland, J. L., Rumelhart, D. E. & Hinton, G. E. (1989), The appeal of parallel distributed processing.
In: Parallel Distributed Processing, Vol. I, ed. D. E. Rumelhart, J. L. McClelland, & the PDP Research
Group, pp. 3-44.
McClelland, J. L., Rumelhart, D. E. & the PDP Research Group, eds. (1989). Parallel Distributed
Processing, Vol. 2.
Reik, T. (1948), Listening with the Third Ear. New York: Pyramid Books, 1964.
- 792 -
Schank, R. C. & Abelson, R. P. (1977), Scripts, Plans, Goals, and Understanding. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates.
Scherer, K. R. (1984), On the nature and function of emotion: A component process approach. In:
Approaches to Emotion, ed. K. R. Scherer & P. Ekman. Hillsdale. NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
pp. 293-317.
Strachey, J. (1934), The nature of the therapeutic action of psycho-analysis. In: Psychoanalytic Clinical
Interpretation, ed. L. Paul. New York: Free Press, 1963.
Thornton, L. (1987), Imagining Argentina. New York: Bantam.
- 793 -
Article Citation [Who Cited This]
Bucci, W. (2002). The Referential Process, Consciousness, and the Sense of Self. Psychoanal. Inq., 22:766-793
