This lecture presents Dr. Rizzuto's book Freud and the Spoken Word: Speech as a Key to the Unconscious.
Freud revolutionized the medical world by introducing the use of the spoken word between the patient and himself as the key therapeutic tool in contrast to the managerial forms of treatment prevalent at that time. He demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that symptoms could be removed by engaging the patient in a verbal description of their internal realities. To achieve his goal Freud modified the structure of ordinary conversation by using words to find and describe not only the objects of reality present in ordinary verbal exchanges but to unveil the hidden psychic reality that made the person psychically ill. In so doing he created the foundation of all contemporary psychotherapies.
More info here.
