Some of these appear to be on an intentional level others seem to be completely unconscious. See CONVERSION REACTION, PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGIC DISORDERS (GENERAL).The functional psychoses offer many illustrations of nonverbal communication through posture, gestures, and other bodily movements.
(1946), believe these disorders represent an infantile use of body language by individuals who are unable to express themselves effectively by verbal means. Thus, “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’ ” (Rosen and Gregory, 1965). A hand paralysis may symbolize masturbation guilt or a struggle to inhibit hostility.” See SYMBOLIZATION, SYMPTOM.Many therapists, particularly those of the psychoanalytic school, also explain psychophysiologic (psychosomatic) symptoms in terms of unconscious meanings. (A single symptom may simultaneously have several meanings.) 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. Hysterical seizures may, in a distorted fashion, express sexuality or tantrumlike hostility and anger. As Rosen and Gregory (1965) point out, “A chronically uncontrollable contraction of the hand into a clenched fist, for example, may symbolize hostility as much as angry words do. In treating this condition, the therapist views the patient’s symptoms as symbols which must be deciphered-and this can only be accomplished by a study of his emotional history and present reaction patterns. The expression of unconscious feelings, impulses, or conflicts through altered functioning of bodily organs also, nonverbal communication through the body, as in posture, gesture, and facial expression.The clearest examples of the language of the body are found in conversion hysteria, since this disorder consists of somatic expressions of emotional disturbance.
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