Psychogenic Voice Disorders Literature Review, Personal Experiences with Opera Singers and Case Report of Psychogenic Dysphonia in Opera Singer

Abstract

The point of this article is to make a diagnosis of psychological voice disorders easier by reviewing germane to the subject literature. Current view on terminology, classification, clinical manifestation and underlying psychological background of this rare condition is given. Secondly our aim is to asses prevalence ratio of psychological voice disorders in a group of 1520 professional opera singers-people with the most challenging voice effort among professional voice users. Our findings contradict common belief of high occurrence rate of this disorder among opera singers. Characteristics of this professional group are discussed and a short example case report is described. Based on literature findings and authors personal experience we propose an outline of an assessment protocol when psychological voice disorder is suspected. The importance of multidisciplinary diagnosis involving laryngologist, psychologist, speech therapist and possibly a psychiatrist is pointed out.

Psychogenic dysphonia

“…Dysphonia is altered vocal quality, pitch, loudness, or vocal effort that impairs communication. [ 1 2 ] A functional speech disorder is caused by an underlying psychological process in contrast to the organic type. [ 3 ] According to The Hysterical Conversion Model of Voice Loss by Freud, an intrapsychic conflict is transformed into a bodily symptom that is connected to or “symbolizes” the conflict.…”