Organ language
According to the psychoanalytic explanation of psychosomatic illness, organ language is the bodily expression of an unconscious conflict as a form of symbolic communication. It is also called organ-speech, a term that Sigmund Freud uses in his 1915 essay "The Unconscious" attributing its coinage to Victor Tausk.
History
In 1915 Freud wrote:
In agreement with Tausk, I would here lay stress on the point that the relation to the bodily organ ... has usurped the place of the whole content of the thought. The schizophrenic speech displays a hypochondriac trait: it has become "organ-speech" (German: Organsprache).
Definition
According to the American Psychiatric Association,
Some believe that understanding the significance to the patient of the organ affected by the illness is essential for accurate diagnosis and treatment. For example, chronic lumbago (lower backache) with no identifiable organic cause may mean that the patient is feeling put upon, is being a martyr, or is aiming too low in life.
In other words, the target organ, tissue or somatic function would be semantically related to the repressed mental content.
Cause
Authors such as Jurgen Ruesch believe these disorders represent an infantile use of body language by individuals who are unable to express themselves effectively by verbal means.
Further examples
"Difficulty in swallowing may represent an unpalatable situation; an asthmatic episode may symbolize a load on the chest; itching may simbolize irritation or that 'something has gotten under the person's skin'." "A chronically uncontrollable contraction of the hand into a clenched fist [...] may symbolize hostility as much as angry words do. Hysterical seizures may, in a distorted fashion, express sexuality or tantrum-like hostility and anger. [...] Blurred vision and functional blindness have been interpreted in various cases as an expression of guilt consequent on real or fancied misdeeds, a fear of the outer world and a magical attempt to do away with it, or a reaction-formation to the unconscious wish to be a voyeur. A hand paralysis may symbolize masturbation guilt or a struggle to inhibit hostility." "Difficulty in swallowing food has been interpreted by analysts as evidence of something 'unpalatable' in the person's life situation; nausea is inability to 'stomach' something unpleasant; vomiting is rejection; asthmatic difficulties symbolize the existence of a load on one's chest; pain in the shoulder or arm indicates an inhibited impulse to strike out aggressively; and neurodermatitic itching is a somatic expression of the saying, 'He gets under my skin'."
Divergences with the psychiatric paradigm
Psychiatry not influenced by such psychoanalytic ideas rejects both the semantic correlation with the target organ and that the cause is an unconscious conflict. If anything, psychosomatizations are due to stress affecting a "constitutional" target organ, correlated by hereditary factors.
See also
Further reading
- Vassilis Kapsambelis (2014). "Le langage d'organe" [Organ-speech]. Revue française de psychanalyse. 78 (3): 658–670. doi:10.3917/rfp.783.0658.
- Linford Rees (1983). "The development of psychosomatic medicine during the past 25 years". Journal of Psychosomatic Research. 27 (2): 157–164. doi:10.1016/0022-3999(83)90093-4. PMID 6864600.