Ana-Maria Rizzuto - Freud and the Spoken Word: Speech as a key to the unconscious

This book is the culmination of Ana-Maria Rizzutos lifelong study of Freuds 1891 Aphasia monograph. Although its scientific merit was recognised decades ago by neurologists, the monograph was curiously orphaned by Freud himself. In this book, Rizzuto demonstrates with definitive authority its seminal importance for psychoanalysis. Although not her main intention, she simultaneously opens new lines of interdisciplinary enquiry regarding some contemporary neuropsychological topics, such as the role of declarative memory (Freuds word presentations) and episodic recall (Freuds scenes) in reflexive consciousness.

Mark Solms , Professor in Neuropsychology and Chair of the Research Committee of the IPA

Rizzutos accurate, precise and inspired analysis of Freuds On Aphasia is the scarlet thread that runs through the whole book, weaving interconnections with some of the problems facing psychoanalysis today. The title Freud and the Spoken Word is essential for defining the field of research not about language but about the individual and unrepeatable linguistic act of the speaker.

The author lists not only the prominent qualities of Freuds theories but also its limitations: the lack of an agent, of the addressee, and affect as a dischargeable quantity. Rizzutos important book addresses their relevance to psychoanalysis.

Professor Jorge Canestri , MD, Training analyst, Italian Psychoanalytical Association

There is extensive literature on Freud and language; however, there is very little that looks at Freuds use of the spoken word. In Freud and the Spoken Word: Speech as a key to the unconscious, Ana-Mara Rizzuto contends that Freuds focus on the intrapsychic function and meaning of patients words allowed him to use the new psychoanalytic method of talking to gain access to unconscious psychic life. In creating the first talking therapy, Freud began a movement that still underpins how psychoanalysts understand and use the spoken word in clinical treatment and advance psychoanalytic theory. With careful and critical reference to Freuds own work, this book draws out conclusions on the nature of verbal exchanges between analyst and patient.

Ana-Mara Rizzuto begins with a close look at Freuds early monograph On Aphasia, suggesting that Freud was motivated by his need to understand the disturbed speech phenomena observed in three of the patients described in Studies on Hysteria. She then turns to an examination of how Freud integrated the spoken word into his theories as well as how he actually talked with his patients, looking again at the Studies on Hysteria and continuing with the Dora case, the Rat Man, and the Wolf Man. In these chapters, the author interprets how Freuds report of his own words shed light on the varying relationships he had with his patients, when and how he was able to follow his own recommendations for treatment and when another factor (therapeutic zeal, or the wish to prove a theory) appeared to interfere in the communication between the two parties in the analysis.

Freud and the Spoken Word examines Freuds work with a critical eye. The book explores his contribution in relation to the spoken word, enhances its significance, and challenges its shortcomings. It is written for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, Freuds scholars, and academics interested in his views on the words spoken in life and in psychoanalysis.

Argentine-born Ana-Mara Rizzuto trained in psychoanalysis in Boston and was for forty years in the PINE Psychoanalytic Center Faculty and is Training and Supervisory Analyst Emerita. She has made significant contributions to the psychoanalysis of religious experience and has written in national and international journals about the significance of words in the clinical situation. She has written three books and lectured about her work in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Japan.

First published 2015
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2015 Ana-Mara Rizzuto

The right of Ana-Mara Rizzuto to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rizzuto, Ana-Maria.

Freud and the spoken word : speech as a key to the unconscious /

Ana-Maria Rizzuto.

pages cm

1. Freud, Sigmund, 18561939. 2. Psychoanalysis.

3. Psycholinguistics. 4. Subconsciousness. I. Title.

BF173.F85R558 2015
150.1952092dc23
2014049103

ISBN: 978-1-138-85810-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-85811-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-71820-0 (ebk)

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I owe deep gratitude to all the patients who taught me and at times forced me to listen to them and to learn to speak to them.

I thank my colleagues Jacqueline Amati-Mehler, Bonnie E. Litowitz, and Cordelia Schmidt-Hellerau for reading chapters of the first draft of the book and making most valuable suggestions.

I specially thank the candidate members of the 2011 Fall Advanced Seminar of the PINE Psychoanalytic Center in Boston for agreeing to discuss the first draft of the book. Their questions, challenges, and comments were most valuable to me.

I also owe much to my editor Deborah Schneider, who with resolute determination and a deep sense of how language conveys meaning, reviewed my clumsy English sentences and gave them more elegant form.

I am deeply indebted to my husband Agustn Aoki, who with great patience gave me continuous encouragement and support in both good times and bad times.