The Referential Process, Consciousness, and the Sense of Self
Emotional Communication and Therapeutic Change December 15, 2002 W. Bucci 148 citations
Multiple code theory and the referential process are linked to levels of awareness and the sense of self, drawing on Damasio's neuropsychology. The interplay between subsymbolic and symbolic systems in working memory, central to the referential process, underlies both consciousness and the self. Pathology originates in dissociation within emotion schemas, affecting all forms of neurosis at different levels. Psychoanalytic treatment aims to integrate these dissociated schemas by activating subsymbolic, including bodily, experience in sessions, alongside symbolic representations of present and past experiences. Implications for repression, resistance, primary process, and language's role in therapeutic change are discussed.