The King’s Speech was met with a great deal of excitement when it came out this past winter. I think this may have been particularly true in the analytic and therapeutic community. It is, after all, about a therapy and more importantly about a therapeutic relationship. Although the therapy is speech therapy, it is very specifically a form of speech therapy that focuses deliberately on personal dynamics and, with less conscious intent, on transference-countertransference dynamics.
For anyone who has not seen the film, it is based on a true story of a very special speech therapy. The patient is “Bertie,” the Duke of York who would become king after his older brother abdicated. The speech therapist is an Australian commoner named Lionel Logue. To compound the difference, we learn that Logue is a self-made man, a would-be Shakespearean actor, who has no formal degree in speech therapy.
Logue’s approach shows some intuitive understanding of psychodynamics and the role of psychic conflict in physical conditions. He is firmly convinced that dealing with the person- al dynamics of his patients is essential to resolving their speech impediments. In fact, that conviction creates conflict between the two primary protagonists, contributing to the transference entanglements that make the film so interesting to analysts, and, I think, to the “lay” viewer as well.
The future king is a severe stutterer. The film opens to a painful scene in which he attempts to give a speech at a crowded stadium in 1926. He begins haltingly while making progress, but after a few sentences, he falters and cannot go on. We can feel the tension and sense the shame as the members of the audience at the stadium frown with disdain or possibly sympathy.
The scene shifts to a painful session with a
pompous speech therapist, who forces Bertie to try to speak through a mouthful of marbles. When he attributes the technique to Demosthenes, Bertie’s wife, Elizabeth, wonderfully supportive in an intelligent way throughout, pointedly asks, “That was in ancient Greece. Has it worked since?” The Duke nearly chokes on the marbles and angrily cuts the lesson short.
It is Elizabeth who seeks out Logue. We are treated to a cute dance, as Logue does not understand who his prospective patient is.
“Well, we need to have your hubby pop by. Tuesday would be good. He’ll give me his personal details, I’ll make a frank appraisal and we can take it from there.”
“Doctor, forgive me. I don’t have a hubby. We don’t pop. And nor do we ever talk about our private lives.”
It is this last point that will prove crucial to the course of the treatment. In fact, we know that many patients are reluctant to talk about their private lives. In the Duke’s case, that defensive reticence is reinforced by a life spent trying to keep the private life private, a special issue for the rich and famous, for whom confidentiality takes on added meaning. When told that his new prospective patient is the Duke of York, Logue shows more understanding of the situation, but still insists on conducting the sessions in his office.
In his own way, he begins using an analytic approach with the Duke in their initial consultation.
“Well, I believe when speaking with a prince one allows the prince to choose the topic.”
With hesitation and stuttering, the Duke answers, “Waiting for me to commence a conversation one can wait rather a long wait.”
These are actually the first words he has spoken to Logue. We can recognize the Duke’s reluctance to speak along with his mildly self-deprecating humor. After a pause, Lionel asks if he knows any jokes and again, with a sharp sense of humor, the Duke answers through his stutter, “Timing isn’t my strong suit.” Despite his difficulty speaking, we can easily find him engaging, even as he shows us his resistance.
Lionel deals with the resistance by going along with it. He offers the Duke a cup of tea and when the Duke refuses, turns to the fire- place to make one for himself, humming as he does it, in essence provoking his patient by demonstrating his own willingness to wait him out. The Duke takes the bait.
“Aren’t you going to start treating me, Dr. Logue?”
“Only if you’re interested in being treated.”
The message is clear that it is the Duke’s responsibility to be an active participant in his treatment, challenging his passive resistance.
He continues, “Call me Lionel.”
This has a double meaning. As we are watching it, it appears to be an attempt to establish the relationship on a personal basis, something that the Duke resists strenuously. Much later we shall see that Lionel has a second purpose. He is covering up the fact that he does not have a degree.
The dialogue devolves around the issue of intimacy. (Throughout these dialogues, the Duke’s speech is generally halting with extreme stuttering.)
The Duke says, “I prefer ‘doctor’.” “I prefer Lionel. What’ll I call you?” “Your Royal Highness. Then, it’s ‘Sir’ after that.”
“It’s a little bit formal for here. I prefer names.”
“Prince Albert Frederick Arthur George.” “How about Bertie?” “Only my family uses that.” “Perfect. In here it’s better if we’re equals.” “If we were equals I wouldn’t be here. I’d be
At home with my wife and no one would give a damn.”
The tension increases when Lionel asks Bertie for his earliest memory.
“What on Earth do you mean?” “First recollection.” (With increased stuttering and a raised
voice) “I’m not here to discuss personal matters.”
“Why’re you here then?”
(Exploding – stammer free) “Because I bloody well stammer!”
When Bertie is openly angry and cursing, the stammer disappears. (It is reminiscent of Tourette’s syndrome.) Throughout the film there will be a suggestion of a connection between aggression and stuttering.
Lionel responds, “Temper.” “One of my many faults.” “When did the defect start?” “I’ve always been this way!” “I doubt that.”
“Don’t tell me! It’s my defect!”
“It’s my field. I assure you, no infant starts to speak with a stammer. When did it start?”
“Four or five.” “That’s typical.” “So I’ve been told. I can’t remember not
doing it.” “That I believe. Do you hesitate when you
think?” “Don’t be ridiculous.” “One of my many faults. How about when you talk to yourself?” When Bertie doesn’t answer, Lionel adds,
“Everyone natters occasionally, Bertie.” “Don’t call me that!” “I’m not going to call you anything else.” “Then we shan’t speak!”
I’ve given the dialogue in detail to give the flavor of the interaction. Even without hearing the tone, the exchange rings with competition and angry tension. There is interplay of a barely friendly tennis match, with Lionel throwing Bertie’s phrase, “One of my many faults,” back at him; and, with intermittent outbursts of overt hostility on Bertie’s part, in this last instance when he is probed with intimacy. The session ends with the patient walking out, saying this is not for him, but not before Lionel has gotten him to read Hamlet’s soliloquy into a recording device while listening to loud music through earphones. As we can guess, the reading was virtually perfect. It will later convince the Duke to return.
We have learned that the Duke’s problem started in early childhood, in fact at the heart of the Oedipal period. As if to confirm a dynamic speculation, we next see him with his father, King George V. The king, looking regal, delivers a radio address in a voice worthy of Michael Gambon, who plays him. He then forces his son, Bertie, to read the speech into the (now dead) microphone. As Bertie meets a wall of stuttering, the king coaches him like a horse driver with a whip, throwing out comments such as, “Get it out, boy! … Form your words carefully … Relax! … Just try it! … Do it!” What began as encouragement ends as sheer bullying, the future king reduced to a whipped pup.
Immediately after that, we see him first listening to his reading of Hamlet and then returning with his wife to see Logue. This time, Logue reluctantly agrees to coach him purely in the mechanics of speech, demanding that they work every day. We see the two of them, and sometimes the three of them, with Elizabeth participating, in a series of manic exercises designed to loosen his throat muscles, strengthen his tongue and tighten his diaphragm.
From our viewpoint, listening for the analytic process, Logue is making a tactical retreat, not directly challenging the resistance while allowing the patient to become engaged.
With Bertie showing some improvement giving a speech, we return to the family dynamics. The entire royal family is gathering around King George’s deathbed. Several years have passed and the once imposing king is now dying and suffering from delirium. Bertie’s older brother, David, appears to be panicking at the prospect of being king. His problem is that he is obsessed (that is the tone conveyed by the film) with a married American woman who has been divorced. David fears that his ascension to the throne will upset his relation- ship with Wallis.
Here we get a very different take on that relationship. Many of us remember multiple replays of newsreels announcing the romance of a king who would step down to marry a commoner, an American at that. The King’s Speech views it from a dramatically different perspective. Through the eyes of Bertie and his wife, David is being irresponsible in having an affair with a twice-married woman. There are also references suggestive of her being a loose woman.
David is portrayed as hedonistic, irresponsible and totally obsessed with Wallis. He ignores Bertie while on the phone with her and describes his pain at becoming king as having to do with how it will affect Wallis.
It is in this context, after the passing of George V, that we witness the next important session in Bertie’s treatment. He arrives, possibly at his regular time, but unexpectedly.
“Bertie, they told me not to expect you. . . . Sorry about your father.”
“I don’t wish to intrude,” (gesturing towards the consultation room). “May I?”
“Of course. Please come in.”
At Bertie’s request, Lionel gives him some brandy. With this natural reinforcement, the session begins in earnest.
Offering an opening for personal reactions, Lionel tells Bertie that he had not been present for his own father’s death, and that it “still makes me sad.”
“I can imagine so. What did your father do?”
“A brewer. … At least there was free beer. … Here’s to the memory of your father.”
“I was informed, after the fact, my father’s last words were: ‘Bertie has more guts than the rest of his brothers put together.’ He couldn’t say that to my face.” Bertie continues, stuttering, “My brother. That’s why I’m here.”
“What’s he done?” “Can’t say. I can’t .. .” He stutters severely, becoming totally locked up and Lionel tells him to try singing it to over- come the stutter. Bertie balks at doing this and Lionel adds an incentive, telling him he can work on a model airplane he’s been eyeing hungrily if he tries singing to the tune of “Swanee River,” “When I was a boy with David …”
Bertie balks at “crooning Swanee River.”
“Try ‘Camptown Races’ then. ‘My brother D, he said to me, doo- dah doo-dah … .’ Continuous sound will give you flow. Does it feel strange, now that David’s on the throne?”
“It was a relief… Knowing I wouldn’t be King.”
“But unless he produces an heir, you’re next in line. And your daughter, Elizabeth, would then succeed you.”
To the tune of Camptown races, Bertie sings, “You’re barking up the wrong tree now, Doctor, Doctor.”
“Lionel, Lionel. You didn’t stammer.”
“Of course I didn’t stammer, I was singing! … Oh!”
Lionel rewards the disclosure by allowing him to work on the plane.
Bertie continues, “David and I were very close. Young bucks … you know.”
“Chase the same girls?”
“David was always very helpful in arranging introductions. We shared the expert ministrations of ‘Paulette’ in Paris. Not at the same time of course.”
“Did David tease you?”
“They all did. ‘Buh-buh-buh-Bertie.’ Father encouraged it. ‘Get it out, boy!’ Said it would make me stop. Said, ‘I was afraid of my father, and my children are damn well going to be afraid of me.’’”
Lionel is watching his patient work the model plane and asks, “Naturally right handed?”
“Left. I was punished. Now I use the right.”
“Yes, that’s very common with stammerers. Any other corrections?”
“Knock knees. Metal splints were made … worn night and day.”
“That must have been painful.” “Bloody agony. Straight legs now.” “Who were you closest to in your family?” “Nannies. Not my first nanny, though—she loved David … hated me. When I was presented to my parents for the daily viewing, she’d … .”
Once again, he is locked up, unable to go on.
Pressed to go on, Bertie answers in a combination of speaking and singing (sung portion in italics): ““She’d pinch me so I’d cry, and be sent away at once, then she wouldn’t feed me, far far away. Took three years for my parents to notice. As you can imagine, it caused some stomach problems. Still.”
Apparently in history taking mode, Lionel asks, “What about your brother, Johnnie? Were you close to him?”
“Sweet boy. Epilepsy … and … he was ‘different.’ Died at 13, hidden from view. Too embarrassing for the family. I’ve been told it’s not catching.”
At the end of the session, Bertie tells Lionel that he’s the first ordinary Englishman—Lionel corrects him, “Australian”—that he’s ever really spoken to. (Nanny transference?)
When Lionel tells him, “What are friends for,” Bertie answers with a trace of sadness and sarcasm, “I wouldn’t know.”
In this first opening up of the therapy, we get a history of a traumatized child, mistreated by his first nanny, made fun of by his siblings and his father, forced to wear metal braces for who knows how long, neglected so that he describes himself as closest to the nannies.
And with that traumatic background, we see evidence of suppressed rage in the stuttering.
He locks up trying to describe what the nanny did to him. This may be an expression of fear, but everything we have been hearing suggests fear mixed with rage. When he is able to speak, through the singing, his sarcasm comes through.
We also have suggestions of the Oedipal dynamics—emphasized in the quotes I have italicized—played out not only with the father, but also with the older brother, who sounds patronizing and sometimes cruel.
Bertie says that he is relieved that he isn’t king, and when Lionel reminds him that he would be next in line if there is no heir, Bertie sings out that he’s barking up the wrong tree. He is adamant at not wanting the crown. This will prove telling in the next session that we see.
Before that, we are given a clue in the next scene, when Bertie attempts to confront his brother about his behavior and his plans.
Bertie: “I’ve been trying to see you …” David: “I’ve been terribly busy.” “Doing what? “Kinging.”
“Really? Kinging? Kinging is a precarious business! Where is the Tsar of Russia? Where is Cousin Wilhelm?”
(Some of Bertie’s hostility is ringing through as a displaced murderous rage.)
“You’re being dreary.”
“Is kinging laying off eighty staff at Sandringham and buying yet more pearls for Wallis while there are people marching across Europe singing ‘The Red Flag’?”
David hurries down some stairs to hunt for a bottle of champagne for Wallis in the wine cellar with Bertie following and saying,
“And you’ve put that woman into our mother’s suite?”
“Mother’s not still in the bed, is she?” “That’s not funny.” Finding the bottle of wine, David says, “Wally likes the very best.”
Bertie retorts, “I don’t care what woman you carry on with at night, as long as you show up for duty in the morning!”
“This is not just some woman I am carrying on with. This is the woman I intend to marry.
“Excuse me?” “She’s filing a petition for divorce.” “Good God! … Can’t you just give her a nice house and a title?”
“I won’t have her as my mistress.”
“David, the Church does not recognize divorce and you are the head of the Church.”
“Haven’t I any rights?”
“Many privileges…”
“Not the same thing. Your beloved Common Man may marry for love, why not me?”
“If you were the Common Man, on what basis could you possibly claim to be King?!”
“Sounds like you’ve studied our wretched constitution.”
“Sounds like you haven’t.”
“Is that what this is all about? Is that why you’ve been taking elocution lessons?”
“I’m attempting t-t…
“That’s the scoop around town. Yearning for a larger audience are we, B-b-b-Bertie?”
“D-don’t say such a th-“
“Young brother trying to push older brother off throne … Positively medieval.”
Now, Bertie is completely locked up in his stuttering.
Despite some stuttering, Bertie is relatively articulate, accusing his brother of shirking his responsibilities until David accuses him of desiring to usurp him. The accusation completely locks him up. The implication is clear to a layman, certainly to an analyst. The accusation hits at a central conflict. Lionel addresses that conflict through the transference at the session following this interchange.
“All that work, down the drain. My own brother … I couldn’t say … I could say … I couldn’t say a word in reply!”
“Why do you stammer more with David than you do with me?”
“Because you’re bloody well paid to listen!”
(He spits this out angrily without stuttering.) “I’m not a geisha girl.” “Stop trying to be so bloody clever!” “What is it about David that stops you speaking?”
“What the bloody hell is it that makes you bloody well want to go on about David?”
“Vulgar but fluent. You don’t stammer when you swear.”
“Bugger off!”
“Is that the best you can do?”
“Well bloody bugger to you, you beastly bastard!”
“A public school prig can do better than that.”
“Shit then. Shit, shit, shit!”
“See how defecation falls trippingly from the tongue?”
“Because I’m angry!”
The session has moved to the central conflict over anger, the connection between anger and stuttering—we would say inhibition—and all of it in the transference.
“Ah, know the “F” word?”
“Fornication?”
“Bertie.”
“Fuck … fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“Yes! You see, not a hesitation!”
“Bloody, bloody, bloody! Shit, shit, shit! Bugger, bugger, bugger! Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
Lionel’s son knocks on the wall asking what’s going on. Lionel comments that that’s a side of Bertie not often seen and Bertie says, “we’re not supposed to really, not in public.” Lionel suggests they go outside for a walk, overruling Bertie’s objection.
In this part session, we have most of the pieces in place, suppressed anger leading to severe inhibition brought into the transference. What is still not made explicit is the connection with Bertie’s older brother, David, the King. This comes together as they resume the session on a walk in the park, but as we shall see, there is a suggestion of an interpretive mistake on Lionel’s part, and possibly a counter- transference reaction.
Lionel begins, “What’s wrong? What’s got you so upset?”
“Logue, you have no idea. My brother is infatuated with a woman who’s been married twice—and she’s American.”
“Some of them must be loveable.”
“She’s asking for a divorce and David is determined to marry her. Mrs. Wallis Simpson of Baltimore.”
“That’s not right. Queen Wallis of Baltimore?” “Unthinkable.” “Can he do that?” “Absolutely not. But he’s going to anyway. All hell’s broken loose.” “Can’t they carry on privately?” “If only they would.” So far, the discussion is relatively neutral.
Now, Lionel brings it back to Bertie’s conflict. “Where does that leave you?” The answer is very telling: “I know my place!
I’ll do anything within my power to keep my brother on the throne.”
“Has it come to that? But the way things are going, your place may be on the throne.” “I am not an alternative to my brother.”
At this point, Lionel makes what could be viewed as a mistake and a counter-transference enactment. Patting Bertie on the shoulder, he says,
“If you had to, you could outshine David.”
The entire film has been set up to make us feel that this statement is very true. In it, we can sense Lionel’s affection and admiration for his patient. The problem is that it bypasses the conflict. Lionel is now assuming that Bertie disowns any ambitions to take his brother’s place out of a lack of confidence; yet, the entire film and all the contents of the sessions to this point belie that opinion. What we have seen unequivocally is that Bertie is conflicted, to put it mildly, over his rivalry with his father and his brother, his rivalry marked by intense rage. It is this Oedipal conflict that appears to be at the heart of his inhibitions. He responds in keeping with this, in transference reaction that at once expresses his rage while continuing to disown his regal ambition.
“Don’t take liberties. That’s bordering on treason!” (Displacing his treasonous Oedipal wishes onto his therapist.)
“I’m just saying you could be king. You could do it.”
“That is treason!”
Lionel does not see his mistake, but goes on in the same vein.
“I’m trying to get you to realize you need not be governed by fear.”
He is of course right and wrong. Yes, Bertie is governed by fear, but not fear of failure. He fears his Oedipal rivalry and rage. He is governed by fear of his anger and ambition.
Bertie responds (in keeping with the dynamics), “I’ve had enough of this!”
“What’re you afraid of?”
“Your poisonous words!”
I have italicized this for emphasis. He sees the expression of Oedipal, regal ambition as poisonous.
“Why’d you show up then? To take polite elocution lessons so you can chit-chat at posh tea parties?”
“Don’t instruct me on my duties! I’m the brother of a King … the son of a King. We have a history that goes back untold centuries. You’re the disappointing son of a brewer! A jumped-up jackeroo from the outback! You’re nobody. These sessions are over!”
He walks off angrily, having displaced his feelings again. Using the transference, he accuses Logue of being the disappointing son, the accusation he diverts from his brother, David. The treatment is interrupted.
We now watch history taking its course as David makes his abdication speech, saying that he can’t discharge his duties without the sup- port of the woman he loves. (The romance of this has been undermined most pointedly by a report that Wallis has been carrying on an affair behind his back.)
Finding himself unable to give his accession speech, Bertie returns to Lionel, somewhat apologetically, supported by his wife, who has told him that she had no ambition to be Queen, but would do so with complete faith in his ability to be a good king. Leaving his wife, Elizabeth, in the Logue family’s dining room, he goes in for a session with Lionel, who now comes closer to the correct interpretation. The opening addresses the problem of replacing both the older brother and the father.
“I understand what you were trying to say, Logue.”
“I went about it the wrong way. I’m sorry.”
“Now here I am. Is the nation ready for two minutes of radio silence?”
“Every stammerer always fears they will fall back to square one. I don’t let that happen. You won’t let that happen.”
“If I fail in my duty … David could come back. I’ve seen the placards ‘Save Our King!’ They don’t mean me. Every other monarch in history succeeded someone who was dead, or about to be. My predecessor is not only alive, but very much so. What a bloody mess! I can’t even give them a Christmas Speech.”
Logue brings it to the paternal conflict: “Like your Dad used to do?”
“Precisely.” “Your father. He’s not here.”
“Yes he is. He’s on that bloody shilling I gave you.”
Lionel brings it back to the Oedipal period. “Easy enough to give away. You don’t have to carry him around in your pocket. Or your brother. You don’t need to be afraid of things you were afraid of when you were five. You’re very much your own man, Bertie. Your face is next, mate.”
This session, in which Lionel addresses the central Oedipal conflict, is interrupted when Lionel’s wife comes home to find the Queen at her table. There is a cordial, respectful and yet warm meeting of the two couples.
The transference comes directly into play in one final dramatic session. They meet at Westminster Abbey for a rehearsal. Bertie con- fronts Lionel with the fact that he is not a doc- tor, has no credentials. He accuses him of leaving the country with a voiceless king, compares himself to “mad King George.” Then he sees Lionel sitting on a ceremonial chair. He insists that he get up. Lionel says it’s just a chair.
“That chair is the seat on which every King and Queen …”
“It’s held in place by a large rock.”
“That is the Stone of Scone. You’re trivializing everything.”
“I don’t care. I don’t care how many royal arses have sat in this chair …”
“Listen to me!”
“Listen to you? By what right?”
“Divine right, if you must! I’m your King!”
“Noooo you’re not! Told me so yourself. Said you didn’t want it. So why should I waste my time listening to you?”
“Because I have a right to be heard!”
“Heard as what?”
“A man! I have a voice!”
“Yes you do. You have such perseverance, Bertie, you’re the bravest man I know. And you’ll make a bloody good king.”
With the Oedipal dynamics and the transference resolved, as they can be so efficiently only in art, the King is now able to assert himself with the Archbishop on the matter of Lionel’s coaching him. With Lionel’s help, we see Bertie successfully overcoming his speech defect and his now not so unconscious conflicts to deliver a speech to the nation, a nation that he will address through the war years.
Film has generally been awkward in portraying psychoanalysis directly; but, as I have tried to show in these pages in the past, it gives us beautiful depictions of “a good analytic hour” when it uses another vehicle to show it. In The Sixth Sense, the ghost of a psychologist treats a haunted young boy, while coming to terms with his own “mortality.” In The Silence of the Lambs, a psychopathic, cannibalistic psychiatrist controls his own impulses long enough to conduct a transformative, healing session built around a traumatic dream with a young FBI agent. Perhaps most bizarrely of all, in Rashomon, a peasant confronts the defenses of a bewildered woodcutter, traumatized by a primal scene experience, freeing him to open himself to forgiveness and relief from his depression.
Now, we can add The King’s Speech to that collection of barely disguised successful analyses, an analysis marked by Oedipal conflict, Oedipal conflict displaced to sibling rivalry, and an intense transference-counter-transference enactment and repair, resulting in a liter- al ascension to the throne and a voice freed from conflictual inhibition.
From the PANY Bulletin, Summer, 2011 49:2