Overtones of the Voice: Some Clinical and Developmental Issues in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

The rise of language occurs simultaneously in the life of a very young child with the capacity to form self-identity. For this reason, specific characteristics of a person's subsequent use of language may facilitate recognition of factors that were significant to ego formation. Affective memories are laid down in this process and fixed for ego-management. Bower (1981) elegantly demonstrated how a whole nexus of affective memories can be elicited when a specific key association is activated. In two case illustrations, psychoanalytic treatment was facilitated by use of key verbal associations. In both cases, these associations proved to be inwardly permissible because they were based on forms linked to developmental levels rather than the content of what was being expressed.