A palavra encarnada: o desenvolvimento da linguagem na obra de René Spitz

Abstract

The study of language acquisition is of great importance in the field of developmental psychology, and for psychoanalysis as well, because speaking is the main tool of its therapeutics. This thesis aims to present, explain and clarify the works of René Spitz. The author was an Austro-Hungarian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, who dedicated a great deal of his production to the study of language acquisition in small children and how language arises as a consequence of maturational, physical, and mental development. In his ego formation theory, the person goes through successive developmental phases, as a consequence of the emergence of the psychic organizers, centers that control the integration of the various faculties of the organism at a given moment. Therefore, going through three developmental phases is a prerequisite to the development of verbal language. These phases can be identified through their respective indicators: the first one is the smiling response, a reflex movement that appears when the baby is about 3 months of age and a moving face is placed in front of it, a sign that it is possible for the baby to distinguish between the living and the inanimate. Afterwards, when the infant is around 8 months old, it expresses anxiety when facing unknown people, a sign that the differentiation process between the I and the other is already at work. Lastly, from 15 to 18 months, the child becomes capable of understanding and using the “no” correctly. This action indicates the acquisition of language, and after the mastery of the “no”, the first abstract concept learnt by the child, other verbal symbols start to arise. Spitz’s works are invaluable to psychoanalytical theory and distinguish themselves both for the interfaces with other fields of knowledge, such as Ethology, Experimental and Developmental Psychology, Embryology and Anthropology, and also for connecting the acquisition of language to the physical, mental and emotional development of the baby, emphasizing the importance of a good and stable relationship with the mother or the primary caregiver.