Symbol Formation in Psychoanalysis

Marisa Pelella Melega is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst in private practice and a Training Analyst and Supervisor at the Brazilian Psychoanalytic Society of Sao Paulo. She founded the Sao Paulo Mother-Baby Relationship Study Centre in 1987, receiving accreditation from the Centro Studi Martha Harris, in Rome. She teaches at the Brazilian Institute as a child psychoanalyst, 1996. Her clinical and research interests include applications of the Esther Bick observation model, as in assessment and therapeutic interventions with parents and children. Mariangela Mendes de Almeida is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist in Sao Paulo, Brazil, She has been working in the field of mental health and child development since 1982. Between 1988 and 1993, she was a Clinical Associate at the Child and Family Department, Tavistock Clinic, where she received her MA in Psychoanalytic Observational Studies (from the University of East London). She is currently training as an analyst at the Institute of the Brazilian Psychoanalytic Society of Sao Paulo. She specializes in early interventions on primitive states of mind in children with severe emotional disturbances. Mariza Leite da Costa trained as a Clinical Psychologist in Brazil before training further as a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic. She is a member of the ACP and holds an MA in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. She is a former Fellow of Essex University, where she taught Infant Observation at the Centre for Psychoanalytical Studies. She has a particular interest in autistic spectrum disorders and is in full time private practice.