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I have always been struck by the limited theorizing about the function of language in psychoanalysis. I am not talking about linguistics. J am talking about a theory of the living acts of speech in the analytic situation, which go beyond semantics to become psychic acts between two persons.
Ana-Maria Rizzuto is a prolific author, theoretician, clinician, and psychoanalytic historian. Having published papers on a wide range of subjects, she seems to have a special interest in speech, listening, and the construction of the mind through internal representations of relationships and affect, topics inspired by Freud's 1891 monograph On Aphasia: A Critical Study. Like many others, Rizzuto sees the origins of Freud's theories and clinical practice in this early work, as well as its influence on and persistence in the rest of his life's work. Her interest is substantial, as she has become “a devotee of the monograph,” publishing her “detailed analysis of several aspects of it in five papers” (p. 4). She further distinguishes herself with Freud and the Spoken Word: Speech as the Key to the Unconscious, in which she meticulously traces the influence of that monograph through his complete oeuvre. She has undertaken a vast scholarly study identifying the persistence, through the entirety of Freud's works, of his early ideas from On Aphasia, as well as seeking support for her belief in the unique and primary importance of “the spoken word.”
At the outset Rizzuto states, “I disagree with Freud's rejection of his early masterpiece. Taking his advice, I have examined all I could find in his writings about his rich, almost inexhaustible, ways of exploring the psychic function of the spoken word, since it is the only tool we have to articulate the unconscious representational reality in which we live”