Nonverbal Communication in the Analysis of Adults

The physical composition of the panel was somewhat modified due to the unexpected disablement, by the flu, of three of the members, Leo Rangell, the panel chairman, Jacob A. Arlow, and Henry Brosin. Elizabeth R. Zetzel chaired the panel on Rangell's behalf. He and Arlow were further represented by papers forwarded to the panel. Brosin's presentation was omitted regrettably, because it involved slide-film projections demonstrating dyssynchronous motor activity in schizophrenics and required a running narration by the author.

Zetzel read a chairman's introductory position paper prepared for the panel by Leo Rangell. Calling our attention to the considerable interest which exists in this subject today both from the theoretical and clinical standpoints, Rangell began by citing the classical contribution of Karl Bühler, whose tripatite classification in 1934 differentiated the functions of language into (a) expression, i.e., of internal needs; (b) appeal, to external objects; and (c) description, of events, objects, etc., i.e., the cognitive function. This succinct formulation, which has since been widely quoted by psychologists and psychoanalysts alike, was utilized by Loewenstein in describing the various functions of speech in analysis. Spitz found it helpful in describing the ontogenesis of the first meaningful symbolic gestures of "no" and "yes" in infancy, and Rangell, looking beyond the "no" and "yes" gestures to the origins of the words themselves, had pointed out previously that while the acquisition of the gestures carries the infant from the expressive to the appeal phase, the achievement of the words themselves carries communication to the third or descriptive level. Psychoanalysis, by adding to Bühler's germinal insight the role of unconscious factors, brought new dimensions to our understanding of "internal needs," of the affective and cognitive processes involved, and of the complex interrelationships between