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In studying the phenomenon of verbalization, it becomes obvious that speaking may influence repression and give rise to 'the release of quanta of regressive affect collateral to repressed ideation'. It is maintained that 'the pleasurephysiological
function of speaking is therapeutically active, and that, since liberation of affect is dependent upon instinctual discharge, a theory of the "analytical rule" must account for its "erotogenic" effects'.
Among the earlier writings concerned with the problem of speaking as an outlet for the discharge of affect, Fliess takes his departure from two basic investigations, one by Abraham and the second by Ella Freeman Sharpe. Abraham describes individuals who, along with the incontrollable urges toward oral communication, tend to urinate excessively—'a need often manifesting itself simultaneously with an outburst of talking or following it directly'. Ella Freeman Sharpe establishes the foundation upon which Fliess's later contentions are based. She maintains that since the power of speech is acquired along with the establishment of anal and urethral sphincter control, the relief of feeling tension originally disposed of by bodily discharge can be displaced and find an outlet through the channel of speech. 'The activity of speaking is substituted for the physical activity … while words become the very substitute for the bodily substances.' Thus, the act of speaking may under certain circumstances substitute for the performance of urination and it becomes obvious that in individuals showing the well-defined erotogenic disturbance, first described by Abraham, the speech apparatus may be used for the accomplishment of a 'regressive urethral-erotic instinctual discharge in displacement'. The speech apparatus under those circumstances is bound to display functional peculiarities characteristic of the erotogenic zone involved.
Clinical observation leaves no doubt that there are three main types of pathological speech: urethral-