La eficacia simbólica

In his seminal text The Symbolic Efficacy, Claude Lévi-Straus carries out an analysis of the shamanic ritualsamong the Kuna Indians provided to assist women in a difficult labour. He wondered about this particular efficiency, for which he coined the phrase symbolic efficacy. The present paper focuses on a critical review of thesaid text from the perspective of a theory of the symbolic. Firstly, a differential definition of notions such as signand symbol, meaning and sense, and semiotic efficacy and symbolic efficiency is made. Then, myth symbolicfunction is reconsidered by assuming that symbolic stories play a determining role in subjectivity conformation.