On Compulsive Behaviours Observed in a Case of Transcortical Aphasia

Abstract

    In a case of transcortical aphasia some various compulsive behaviours were observed ; for example, compulsive picking up and manipulating of goods on the table during speech therapy, compulsive repetition of the question in the conversation (auditory echolalia), compulsive reading aloud of letters which came in his visual field (visual echolalia) and stereotypic iterations of actions and utterances of some empty phrases. The authers discussed the symptomatological implication of “Hypermetamorphose” (Wernicke), “formulation verbale” (Pick), “Freiheitsverlustsyndrom” (Scheller), “Environmental dependency syndrome” (Lhermitte) and “Distan-zlosigkeitssyndrom ” (Hadano et al.), stressing important meanings of such a psychiatric approach to the study of compulsive behaviours.