In human studies, lesioning of the rostral anterior insula (associated with the affective component of pain) can result in pain
asymbolia: the disassociation of the unpleasant experience and the nociceptive response to pain (e.g., Berthier et al., 1987).
silent
asymbolia, she nevertheless underscores the function of
Other differential diagnoses that should be considered in such patients include CIP pain
asymbolia, Fragile X syndrome (11,15), and syringomyelia.
This paper argues that Grahek has mischaracterized pain
asymbolia. Properly understood, asymbolics have lost a general capacity to care about their bodily integrity.
Bahun, though, radically revises the affective tenor of both La Trobe and the audience: "Every stasis entails a risk, La Trobe realizes as the audience's intense despair engulfs her: one may become overwhelmed by reality, fall into autistic stillness, or be driven into melancholic
asymbolia" (182).
The deep sadness of the melancholic subject is indicated by
asymbolia. Through creative practice, melancholia as a structuring of psychic space is in some way transferred to artworks.
Making use of Julia Kristeva's concept of narcissistic melancholy, (4) I read The Memory Keeper's Daughter as an attempt to represent 'the real that does not lend itself to signification' (13), showing how it represents grief as a turning away from the realm of signs, a disintegration of bonds, and a retreat into
asymbolia. Finally, I utilize Kristeva's concept of poetic language as a 'counter-depressant', which ameliorates the pain of loss without repudiating it, to suggest that this and other examples of women's grief fiction attempt to 'transform the woeful darkness into lyrical song' (162).