Liminal transitions in a semiotic key: The mutual in-feeding between present and past

Abstract

This article proposes a reading of liminal transitions in semiotic terms; that is, as a byproduct of the dynamics of sensemaking consisting of how two components of meaning interact: the observable side of meaning (Significance in Praesentia)-the rupture directly experienced by the interpreter-and a further generalized meaning-the semiotic scenario (Significance in Absentia), which makes the lived experience interpretable. Due to its pre-semantic and affective nature, in the liminal hotspot the semiotic scenario keeps a certain version of the self alive, regardless of the changes occurring in the real world. The conditions that favor such dynamics are briefly outlined as well as some implications for theory, methodology, and intervention.

Psychological functions of semiotic borders in sense-making: Liminality of narrative processes

“…In semiotic terms the border crossing is configured as a threshold ( De Luca Picione & Freda, 2016c ), namely a bifurcation point characterized by the loss of the old symbolic order (meaningful articulations of signs) and by the lack of a future order. The threshold marks the passage by reassuring stability (the previous narrations of self, others and world) to uncertainty and unpredictability ( Greco & Stenner, 2017 ; Salvatore & Venuleo, 2017 ). According to Lotman (2009) , an explosive process is taking place.…”

The Cardiac Rehabilitation Psychodynamic Group Intervention (CR-PGI): An Explorative Study

“…The person’s biological impairment is often seen in terms of rupture, which creates discontinuity in personal experience ( Boeijea et al, 2002 ; De Luca Picione et al, 2016 ). The psychodynamic theory highlights how people tend to live and react to disruptive events (like a critical state of health like MI) in terms of emotional, affect-laden interpretations, rather than in a merely rational way ( De Luca Picione et al, 2016 ; Salvatore and Venuleo, 2017 ): events, persons, acts, discourses, and any other element of life – including heart attack and the change it imposes – acquire existential meaning in the light of the subjective affective frame by which people interpret their being in the world ( Salvatore and Venuleo, 2008 ; Salvatore and Freda, 2011 ; Venuleo et al, 2016 , 2017 ). Affective meanings are encapsulated with respect to the cognitive processing of the information concerning the changed situation; consequently, they are unable to learn from experience.…”

“…And this is just a different way of saying what psychoanalysis has claimed about the unconscious, namely that it does not contemplate time, negation, and novelty ( Freud, 1899/1955 ; Matte Blanco, 1975 ). At the phenomenological level, the inertial valence of affects is there for all to see, and with it, people’s tendency to interpret the new in terms of the past ( Salvatore and Venuleo, 2017 ).…”

“…They recognize the new aspects at a verbal level, but this awareness is unable to become body and action, namely to be assimilated deeply by the person – it works as if it were the representation of something else, concerning others. This means that the interpretation of the new reality – the one imposed by the heart attack rupture – tends to be carried out within the affective meanings comprising the before-rupture subjective frame ( Salvatore and Venuleo, 2017 ). And this frame may not enable the patients to manage the new condition and to carry out the important lifestyle changes needed for the sake of risk reduction.…”

“…As has been said above, the rupture due to MI experience prompts an affect-laden form of meaning-making, namely a lived interpretation of the critical event, and more in general of the person’s relationship with the world ( Salvatore and Venuleo, 2017 ). Thus, one can see patients that feel and think of themselves, and also behave, in terms of impotence – i.e., as if the MI event had made them completely devoid of resources with no chance of defending and improving their health and making their life better; in other cases, patients seem to simply deny the critical medical condition they have to cope with, seeing themselves in terms of omnipotence – i.e., as if nothing actually bad could ever really happen to them (and consequently they will tend to underestimate the risk factors associated with their lifestyle).…”