Voice and psyche: dialogues between speech therapy and psychoanalysis

Abstract

This article discusses the relationship between voice and psyche inside the speech therapy field, especially for the vocal symptoms. It is observed that the professional’s speech in the area doesn’t deny these relations, but the scientific production and the clinical approach separate psychic and organic dimensions of the vocal symptoms. This approach takes the speech therapy intervention to restrict the vocal symptoms to an observed body’s symptom, in an audible and visible way. We then discussed, through a bibliographic research, the inaccuracy of the terminology, which revealed inconsistent concepts used at the Speech Therapy’s literature of the vocal disorders. Finally, we pointed for an approach based on the psychoanalysis theory, which could turn the speech therapy intervention of the vocal symptoms into a process that assumes the therapeutic role.