Stammering; a psychoanalytic interpretation / [Isador H. Coriat].

  • Coriat, Isador H. (Isador Henry), 1875-1943
Date:
1928 [©1927]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Stammering; a psychoanalytic interpretation / [Isador H. Coriat]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    “Now since the stammerer’s difficulty is to produce the vowel and is not to produce voice per se, it is evident that his difficulty must be to produce the vowel color or vowel- quality, The stammerer’s difficulty is transient auditory amnesia: he is unable to recall the sound image of the vowel that he wishes to enunciate.” An attempt has been made to correlate this theory of auditory amnesia with that of cerebral congestion. Accord¬ ing to this conception, the cerebral congestion blurs mental imagery, especially the auditory verbal imagery, thus rendering it impossible for the stammerer for the time being to recall a part or a whole of the word he wishes to speak at the moment of articulation. The increase in brain volume in the auditory speech center becomes then the important factor in the production of stammering. Why this verbal congestion should affect the auditory speech center alone is not discussed; in fact such an absolute limitation of circulatory disturbance under normal condi¬ tions, in the absence of any organic brain disease, is physio¬ logically and anatomically unthinkable and impossible. If this theory had an adequate basis, why is it that all stam¬ merers are able to sing without difficulty or read aloud when alone without any evidence of speech defect? In fact, if stammerers are carefully questioned, it will be found that they are always able to recall the sound images of a vowel or consonant, the difficulty lying, not in the mental image, but in peripheral enunciation. If initial vowels and initial “h” are difficult to pronounce, this difficulty is not due to a hypothetical auditory amnesia, but because these particular sounds produce nothing to satisfy the oral libido by means of the labial muscles. This expla¬ nation will be more completely elaborated later in the course of this volume.4 The theory that stammering is produced by respiratory 4 See particularly Chapter V.