The term verbigeration was first used in psychiatry by Karl Kahlbaum in 1874, and it referred to a manner of talking which was very fast and incomprehensible. At the time verbigeration was seen as a ‘disorder of language’ and represented a central feature of catatonia. The word is derived from the Latin word ‘verbum’ (also the source of ‘verbiage’), plus the verb ‘gerĕre’, to carry on or conduct, from which the Latin verb ‘verbigerāre’, to talk or chat, is derived. However, clinically the term verbigeration never achieved popularity and as such has virtually disappeared from psychiatric terminology.
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During the first rite of Paradise Now, the Living Theatre simulates this experience of verbigeration and employs it to transform the performer s relationship to the spectator.
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Verbigeration is a verbal stereotypy in which usually one or several sentences or strings of fragmented words are repeated continuously. Sometimes individuals will produce incomprehensible jargon in which stereotypies are embedded. The tone of voice is usually monotonous. This can be produced spontaneously or precipitated by questioning.
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Catatonia can be stuporous or excited. Stuporous catatonia is characterized by immobility during which individuals may show reduced responsiveness to the environment (stupor), rigid poses (posturing), an inability to speak (mutism), or waxy flexibility, in which they maintain positions after being placed in them by someone else. Mutism may be partial and they may repeat meaningless phrases (verbigeration) or speak only to repeat what someone else says (echolalia). People with stuporous catatonia may also show purposeless, repetitive movements (stereotypy).
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The various psychoses involve deficits in the autonomous ego functions (see above) of integration (organization) of thought, in abstraction ability, in relationship to reality and in reality testing. In depressions with psychotic features, the self-preservation function may also be damaged (sometimes by overwhelming depressive affect). Because of the integrative deficits (often causing what general psychiatrists call "loose associations," "blocking," "flight of ideas," "verbigeration," and "thought withdrawal"), the development of self and object representations is also impaired. Clinically, therefore, psychotic individuals manifest limitations in warmth, empathy, trust, identity, closeness and/or stability in relationships (due to problems with self-object fusion anxiety) as well.
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In his research of catatonia, he published the monograph, Die Katatonie oder das Spannungsirresein, in which he characterizes the disorder as disturbance in motor functionality that represents a phase in a progressive illness that includes stages of mania, depression and psychosis that typically ends in dementia.American Journal of Psychiatry Catatonia in Psychiatric Classification: A Home of Its Own Kahlbaum's work would in time influence German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin. Strictly speaking however Kahlbaum's catatonia is not, as is commonly believed, the same as the catatonia found in Emil Kraepelin's concept of dementia praecox. Rather, as Adolf Meyer would later complain with respect to dementia praecox, "Kahlbaum's catatonia was liberally extended so as to include everything that showed catalepsy, negativism, automatism, stereotypy, and verbigeration" (Meyer, 1910, p. 276).
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