Language
Loewald approached language from a perspective that is unique among analytic theorists. Unlike Sullivan, Daniel Stern, and Freud, whose understanding of language included a sharp distinction between verbal and preverbal expressions, Loewald states that verbal and preverbal expressions are a form of sensory experience.
He distinguishes between the primary process in which the child experiences only sounds (fantasy), and the secondary process, in which the child gives meaning to these sounds (reality).
Psychopathology is caused by a split between these processes, between fantasy and reality. Mental health entails an open communication and interpenetration between the primary and the secondary process.
Read more about this topic: Hans Loewald
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines
Are footpaths for the thought of Italy!
Thy flame is blown abroad from all the heights,
Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,
As of a mighty wind, and men devout,
Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,
In their own language hear thy wondrous word,
And many are amazed and many doubt.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)
“Public speaking is done in the public tongue, the national or tribal language; and the language of our tribe is the men’s language. Of course women learn it. We’re not dumb. If you can tell Margaret Thatcher from Ronald Reagan, or Indira Gandhi from General Somoza, by anything they say, tell me how. This is a man’s world, so it talks a man’s language.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)
“Denotation by means of sounds and markings is a remarkable abstraction. Three letters designate God for me; several lines a million things. How easy becomes the manipulation of the universe here, how evident the concentration of the intellectual world! Language is the dynamics of the spiritual realm. One word of command moves armies; the word liberty entire nations.”
—Novalis [Friedrich Von Hardenberg] (1772–1801)