The Expressive Urge and the Schema of the Tendencies of Configuration

Abstract

Piderit, Darwin, Wundt, and later Croce and Kohnstamm have described the many ambiguities of expressive gestures. In general psychiatry it has become common because of Kraepelin to treat the disturbances of the expressive gestures as a unit in themselves. Only Klages, however, founded a complete theory of expression, much of which we accept.⁷ According to his theory, expressive gestures have the capability of so realizing psychic elements that they are communicated to us directly, as participants. Any motor discharge can be a carrier of expressive processes, not just voluntary movements, hut also physiological reflex manifestations such as blushing. From the purposeful movement of the arm, the gesture provoked by joy or anger, to the “oral gesture” of the word and its manifestation in writing or in a picture, the individual-psychological element is always communicated to us simply and directly, instead of by rational association.