In the previous chapter, we discussed psychoanalytic observations on a case of Broca's (motor) aphasia. The case described in this chapter is that of a patient who was recovering from Wernicke's (sensory) aphasia. The outstanding feature of the previous case, from the psychoanalytic viewpoint, was his relative normality. Our psychoanalytic observations on him led us to the conclusion that, despite his severe speech and language disorder, and his other physical handicaps, the young man in question was essentially unchanged as a person. This, we felt, was a remarkable observation, considering the central place that has always been assigned in psychoanalytic metapsychology to “words” in the structure and dynamics of mental functioning. That is why at the end of chapter five we reminded the reader that “the word” is a complex neuropsychological entity—comprised of numerous component