Meetings of the New York Psychoanalytic Society

March 11, 1952. SOME REMARKS ON THE ROLE OF SPEECH IN PSYCHOANALYTIC THERAPY. Rudolph M. Loewenstein, M.D.

Dr. Loewenstein begins by restating relevant aspects of analytic therapy: strengthening the area of the patient's ego which is free of conflicts by the analyst's knowledge, understanding and objectivity; gaining insight which consists not only of an increase in awareness, but also in the dynamic changes ensuing from it. Especially relevant is the common observation that a barrier exists between the consciousness of thoughts and emotions and their verbalization.

Discussing the role of communication from the analysand and interpretation by the analyst during the course of analysis, he states: 'Only when the patient says in his own words what the analyst has tried to convey to him by the interpretation, only then do we know that this interpretation has become part of him, that the interpretation and the patient's unconscious wording of the same unconscious elements have coincided; in short, that he has gained insight'. Experiencing affects in analysis must be followed by their verbalization and this is followed by the establishment of connections between affect and content. The analysis of the transference or of acting out endeavors, by means of interpretation, to transform repetitive behavior into insight which clarifies the intertwining of past and present and thus unravels this connection and its pathogenic effect.

The role of language in analysis is not limited to the above. Language, according to de Saussure, may be defined as a system of distinctive signs corresponding to distinct ideas, a fixed relation existing between the signifying (word) and the signified (concept). The word refers to a concept and not to a real object. Buehler distinguishes three functions of language: cognitive, expressive, and appeal. We expect the patient to confine himself to the expressive function but he soon employs the other two. The analyst confines himself to the co