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Some Remarks on the Role of Speech in Psycho-Analytic Technique

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Some Remarks on the Role of Speech in Psycho-Analytic Technique LOEWENSTEIN, R. (1956) SOME REMARKS ON THE ROLE OF SPEECH IN PSYCHO-ANALYTIC TECHNIQUE. INT. J. PSYCHO-ANAL., 37:460 (IJP) SOME REMARKS ON THE ROLE OF SPEECH IN PSYCHO-ANALYTIC TECHNIQUE [1] RUDOLF M. LOEWENSTEIN, M.D. The discovery of the dynamic character of the unconscious, and the realization that most of the psychic processes usually observed in consciousness could be found also to exist preconsciously, led Freud to rely but little upon the presence or absence of conscious awareness in mental phenomena. Indeed, the factor of consciousness or its absence is elusive and deceptive, and the delimitation of the System Cs from the System Pcs cannot always be carried out unambiguously. Thus a conception of the psychic apparatus devised so as to include consciousness among its essential elements could not prove entirely satisfactory. To these difficulties one might perhaps attribute the fact that Freud, as Ernest Jones reports in the second volume of his biography (19), destroyed his manuscripts devoted to problems of consciousness. At any event, Freud cut through these complications by his fundamental change of the framework on which he proceeded to base the functioning of the mental apparatus. We know that the introduction of the structural approach to psychic phenomena became tremendously fruitful for the development of psychoanalysis. We also know that it permitted an understanding and a description of our technical procedure which before would have been impossible. The concept of the ego, in particular, had the advantage of encompassing conscious as well as preconscious and unconscious phenomena, and of uniting them within a common functional organization. However, it did not dispose of the existence of conscious as opposed to preconscious and unconscious processes, and of problems related to the functional differences between them. Freud never thought that conscious mental processes should be considered mere epiphenomena of unconscious and preconscious ones (12), and he never relinquished his interest in problems connected with them. In his posthumous Outline of Psychoanalysis (16) he wrote: 'Conscious processes on the (perceptual) periphery of the ego [2] and everything else in the ego unconscious—such would be the simplest state of affairs that we might picture. And such may in fact be the conditions prevailing in animals. But in man there is an added complication owing to which internal processes in the ego may also acquire the quality of consciousness. This complication is produced by the function of speech, which brings the material in the ego into a firm connexion with the memory-traces of visual and more particularly of auditory perceptions. Henceforth the perceptual periphery of the cortex of the ego can be stimulated to a much greater extent from inside as well; internal events such as consequences of ideas and intellective processes can become conscious; and a special apparatus becomes necessary in order to distinguish between the two possibilities— that is, what is known as reality-testing.' [3] Although less acute, the problem of the curative effect on neuroses being achieved by bringing unconscious phenomena to consciousness still remains. I shall try to contribute to its understanding by approaching it from a limited viewpoint; namely, that of the role of verbalization in the analytic procedure. But first I should like to make a few preliminary remarks about the term 'bringing to consciousness'. Freud's original formulation of the aim of psycho-analytic therapy—to lift amnesias— was sufficient as long as only the undoing of the effects of repression was considered. But since __________________________ 1Based on a paper presented at a meeting of the New York Psychoanalytic Society on 11 March 1952, and at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association in Atlantic City on 11 May 1952. An abbreviated version of the present text was read in the Symposium on 'The Theory of Technique' held at the Centenary Scientific Meetings of the British Psycho-Analytical Society in London on 5 May 1956. 2Poetzl's work and the recent experimental studies by Charles Fisher (8), (9) indicate the existence of perception without consciousness. 3Freud had discussed these problems previously in The Interpretation of Dreams (12), 'The Unconscious' (13) and Moses and Monotheism (15). - 460 - psycho-analysis came to consider the results of other defensive mechanisms as well, the need has also arisen to encompass such processes as the re-establishment of connexions, for instance, and the correction of distortions produced by various mechanisms of defence. We refer here to the important role of the synthetic and organizing function in the therapeutic process. Under these circumstances we are justified, I believe, in supplementing the term 'bringing to consciousness' by the more comprehensive one 'gaining of insight' when we wish to designate the results of changes in the ego which make warded-off mental functions available to the conflictless sphere of the ego. This term comprises both the bringing to consciousness and the re- establishment of connexion (Bibring, 3) ; (Fenichel, 7) ; (Nunberg, 25) ; (Kris, 20) ; (Loewenstein, 23). It is true that the term 'gaining insight' has been submitted to critical scrutiny, and the objection advanced that it is used also in other contexts and thus might lead to confusion or misunderstandings. We know how frequently patients nowadays use a so- called 'insight' to form resistances by intellectualization (A. Freud, 11) ; (Kris, 22). But we also know that a wallowing in emotions may likewise, and at least as frequently, be used as resistance; yet this fact does not lead us to deny the importance of affects in psycho-analytic therapy. Therefore I believe that for lack of a better expression we are entitled to continue our use of the term 'analytic insight' to designate, not only the increase in awareness, but also the dynamic changes encompassed by it. For we know that such insight is gained only after certain dynamic changes have occurred, and that gaining of insight, in its turn, leads to other dynamic changes (Kris, 20) ; (Loewenstein, 23). This terminological digression will, I hope, prove useful for our discussion of verbalization. Psycho-analysis is both an investigative and a therapeutic procedure, a long-drawn-out experiment and process taking place entirely in the realm of speech. It is an exchange of particular communications between two people, a kind of dialogue, very different from all other dialogues. The analytic set-up, the fundamental rule and the role of the analyst make it unique. The patient is expected in fact to relinquish, to some extent, the exercise of an essential function of conscious phenomena: the aim- directed character of conscious thinking; the ability of the System Cs to select deliberately, from among all preconscious memories, only those which at the moment suit its aim. In exchange, this controlled regression of the ego (Kris, 20) ultimately brings to the System Cs elements from the preconscious which otherwise would have remained outside the sphere of consciousness. These latter processes are facilitated, to a certain extent, by the protective role of the analyst and also by the fact that in the transference he happens to draw certain affects of the patient on to himself; but mainly by the role he plays in lending the help of his own ego functions to the weakened and restricted autonomous ego of the patient. He supplies the knowledge of mental phenomena, the understanding and objectivity which help the patient to face them. In this peculiar dialogue the analyst is supposed to devote his entire attention to the mental phenomena of his patient, limiting his thoughts and words exclusively to the understanding of his interlocutor. One can say that in the person of the analyst the patient acquires an additional autonomous ego tending to enlarge the area of his System Cs over his unconscious. Before going further into some details of the analytic procedure, let us dwell for a moment on the various functions of language. Ferdinand de Saussure (30) advanced the basic distinction between the two aspects which he designated, in French, by the terms langue and parole. Translated into English this is the differentiation between 'language', defined as a system of distinctive signs corresponding to distinct ideas, on the one hand, and 'speech', referring to utterances or spoken language, on the other. These two aspects of language are inseparable from one another, each being impossible without the other. Following de Saussure's formulations, the Viennese psychologist Karl Buehler (4) devised a general classification of the various functions of speech. According to him, speech encompasses three functions between addressor and addressee: they may speak of objects and their relationships; or the addressor may express (i.e. communicate) what is in himself; or he may appeal to the addressee. The act of speech therefore comprises: (1) what Buehler called the Darstellungsfunktion, which could be translated as function of representation or, according to Roman Jakobson (18) as cognitive function, since it refers to the knowledge and description - 461 - of things or objects and the connexions between them; (2) the function of expression, by which the speaker expresses something about himself; (3) the function of appeal, encompassing all those speech acts which appeal to the addressee to do something or to respond in some way; e.g. imploring, commanding, forbidding, seducing, etc. In the analytic situation we might expect the patient's speech to be mainly confined to the expressive function and to that facet of the function of representation which deals mostly with the description of events. But experience shows that very soon the patient's thoughts lead him to exercise the third function, too, when his interest begins to centre on the analyst. The latter, in accordance with the rules of analytic technique, has two tasks. He refrains from responding to the appeal function which manifests itself as transference reactions.
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