Mechanistic neurology incorrectly ascribes the speech function exclusively to certain local areas in the brain, the so-called speech centers on the cerebral cortex. From a functional perspective, however, we understand that these speech centers function only to integrate impulses entering and leaving the brain from and to the tissues and organs contained in the thoracic, cervical and oral segments that are involved with the speech function.
Sigmund Freud, who was a highly skilled and respected neurologist before launching into psychoanalysis, came to the same conclusion as a result of his investigations into brain pathophysiology in patients suffering from aphasia. Contrary to what was popularly believed by neurologists at that time, he demonstrated that individual words were not localized in the brain. In the conclusion to his monograph, On Aphasia written in 1891 he writes, “the significance of the factor of [speech] localization for aphasia has been overrated, and that we should be well advised once again to concern ourselves with the functional states of the apparatus of speech.” Freud had first to scientifically satisfy himself of the inadequacies of the mechanistic approach to the psychology of speech before introducing psychoanalysis and free association to the world. The significance of this important contribution by Freud to the history of science is overlooked by everyone.
The next important step in understanding disturbances in the speech function also came from the realm of pathology. Clinical experience with patients in medical orgone therapy who have certain speech impediments such as spastic dysphonia and stuttering revealed that when muscular armor is removed from the segments involved in speech by expressing the anger in therapy that was being held in those muscles, the speech disturbance was permanently eliminated. Thus, the presence of body armor was found to be an important factor in producing these symptoms.
Therefore, the integration of organ sensations of the speech apparatus from the thoracic (respiration), cervical (vocalization), oral (articulation) and ocular (comprehension) segments by the brain must be the the sources of the speech function. Armor results in a disturbance in the integration of these organ sensations.
One is reminded of the motion picture, The Kings Speech, which accurately depicts a stutterer who is clearly portrayed as having severe oral and cervical armor. When he is provoked to anger, his stuttering temporarily disappears. The discharge of emotional energy accompanying the expression of anger that is bound up in the armored organs of articulation (vocal cords, facial muscles, tongue etc.) momentarily eliminates the speech problem.
Charles Konia, M.D. 