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To study the peculiarities of schizophrenic speech, it is necessary to study the initial symptoms, because later secondary elaborations complicate the picture. Katan gives examples of the typical verbal associations of schizophrenics, of their using the names instead of the objects themselves, of their hypercathexis of words.
Freud demonstrated that schizophrenics, having lost all object relationships, make attempts at restitution, but in so doing cannot catch more than words, the shadows of the objects. This explanation, Katan says, is not sufficient. Every attempt to regain the world of lost objects is bound once more to meet the same dangers which previously had caused the withdrawal from reality. Delusions, as well as the schizophrenic manner of handling words, are more than mere attempts at restitution. They are attempts to master old dangers and, no doubt, to master them in a new way. 'The word expresses this danger and operates as a danger signal, against which the patient can easily protect himself by avoiding it.' Later, the relations of the words to the dangers are blurred, but they can be traced in the initial stages. What is true of words, is also true of symbols. The schizophrenic uses them also for the purpose of mastering danger situations although in quite another way than the neurotic.
The reviewer would like to add that Freud too was of the opinion that along with the words which are the shadows of the lost objects, the shadows of the conflicts around those objects also keep returning.