science

Organ language

Organ language is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Organ language rather than just read about it. In short: According to the psychoanalytic explanation of psychosomatic illness, organ language is the bodily expression of an unconscious conflict as a form of symbolic communication. It is also called organ-speech, a term that Sigmund Freud uses in his 1915 essay "The Unconscious" attributing its coinage to Victor Tausk.

Key takeaways

Organ language belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Organ language to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Organ language from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

According to the psychoanalytic explanation of psychosomatic illness, organ language is the bodily expression of an unconscious conflict as a form of symbolic communication. It is also called organ-speech, a term that Sigmund Freud uses in his 1915 essay "The Unconscious" attributing its coinage to Victor Tausk.

History In 1915 Freud wrote:

In agreement with Tausk, I would here lay stress on the point that the relation to the bodily organ ... has usurped the place of the whole content of the thought. The schizophrenic speech displays a hypochondriac trait: it has become "organ-speech" (German: Organsprache). Alfred Adler used the term "organ dialect" as early as 1912, when he wrote a paper of that name. He later borrowed the term "organ jargon" that had been coined by Georg Groddeck, and also synonymously employed the term organ language.

Definition According to the American Psychiatric Association,

Some believe that understanding the significance to the patient of the organ affected by the illness is essential for accurate diagnosis and treatment. For example, chronic lumbago (lower backache) with no identifiable organic cause may mean that the patient is feeling put upon, is being a martyr, or is aiming too low in life. In other words, the target organ, tissue or somatic function would be semantically related to the repressed mental content.

Further examples "Two persons may suffer from leg pains that have no basis in organic disease. One of them could say: 'I can't stand on my own two feet,' expressing a conviction that he or she must depend on the help of others to meet life's challenges, while the other could reply: 'I can't stand it!', declaring an inability to endure a particular pressure or difficult situation". One might discover that a client, experiencing heart trouble for which there is no medical explanation, is expressing heartbreak". "Difficulty in swallowing may represent an unpalatable situation; an asthmatic episode may symbolize a load on the chest; itching may symbolize irritation or that 'something has gotten under the person's skin'." "A chronically uncontrollable contraction of the hand into a clenched fist [...] may symbolize hostility as much as angry words do. Hysterical seizures may, in a distorted fashion, express sexuality or tantrum-like hostility and anger. [...] Blurred vision and functional blindness have been interpreted in various cases as an expression of guilt consequent on real or fancied misdeeds, a fear of the outer world and a magical attempt to do away with it, or a reaction-formation to the unconscious wish to be a voyeur. A hand paralysis may symbolize masturbation guilt or a struggle to inhibit hostility." "Difficulty in swallowing food has been interpreted by analysts as evidence of something 'unpalatable' in the person's life situation; nausea is inability to 'stomach' something unpleasant; vomiting is rejection; asthmatic difficulties symbolize the existence of a load on one's chest; pain in the shoulder or arm indicates an inhibited impulse to strike out aggressively; and neurodermatitic itching is a somatic expression of the saying, 'He gets under my skin'."

Divergence with the psychiatric paradigm

Psychiatry not influenced by such psychoanalytic ideas rejects both the semantic correlation with the target organ and that the cause is an unconscious conflict. If anything, psychosomatizations are due to stress affecting a "constitutional" target organ, correlated by hereditary factors. For the psychiatrist Jurgen Ruesch, these disorders represent an infantile use of body language by individuals who are unable to express themselves effectively by verbal means.

See also Conversion disorder Somatization disorder

References

Further reading Vassilis Kapsambelis [in French] (2014). "Organ-speech [Le langage d'organe]". Revue française de psychanalyse. 78 (3): 658–670. doi:10.3917/rfp.783.0658. Giovanni Hautmann [in Italian] (1990). "An Introduction to the Problem of Organ Language". Rivista di psicoanalisi. 36 (2): 426–438. Christian Müller (1984). "New Observations on Body Organ Language". Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. 42 (1–4): 124–126. doi:10.1159/000287835. JSTOR 45115381. PMID 6514957. Linford Rees (1983). "The development of psychosomatic medicine during the past 25 years". Journal of Psychosomatic Research. 27 (2): 157–164. doi:10.1016/0022-3999(83)90093-4. PMID 6864600.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Organ language

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Organ language claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Organ language before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Organ language ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Organ language

In research: Organ language appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Organ language in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Organ language is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1910s neologisms, Freudian psychology, Language, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Organ language outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Organ language in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Organ language means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Organ language out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Organ language in simple terms?

Why does Organ language matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Organ language?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Organ language.