Article

Ferite del linguaggio. Un approccio “personalistico” alla comprensione dell’afasia

by Rosalia Cavalieri

in Versus n. 124, Sensorial Effectiveness. Sensoriality, immediacy, and presence in audiovisual media, pp.129-146

Abstract (english)

Language wounds. A “personalistic” approach to understanding of aphasia. The aim of this essay is to try to describe the condition of the aphasic with a “personalistic” approach, with a style that remembers that of the “romantic” scientist, to use an expression adopted by Alexander Lurija, the father of neuropsychology. Aphasia is generally object to abstract, disincarnated and depersonalized clinical-specialist treatises, where the disease is considered a set of clinical evidence common to many cases. Thus leaving out the clinical and neuropsychological data produced by “evidence-based medicine”, although important to understand the linguistic and cognitive implications of this pathological condition, we will focus on the phenomenology of aphasia and in particular on the listening of his direct witnesses, for try to understand how the person's life has changed as a result of the disease. Recognizing the value of pathological experiences, overcoming a reductionist approach, abstract and detached to the illness, allows to return the person that biological, psychological and social complexity that is his own.