According to some music therapists, the use of music in the therapeutic environment has an affinity with psychoanalysis in that it addresses obstructions in the mind that might be causing stress, psychic tension, and even physical illness. Music has been used, in conjunction with a psychoanalytic approach, to address symptoms of a variety of mental disorders, as well as forms of emotional distress, such as grief, loss, mourning, and trauma.
History Sigmund Freud discussed shortly some musical phenomena in his book The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), but he was more interested in other arts, especially literature and the visual arts. Freud's attitude toward music was ambivalent. He described himself as being "ganz unmusikalisch" (totally unmusical). Despite his much-protested resistance, he could enjoy certain operas such as Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro and he used musical metaphors in the context of theory and therapy.
Freud seemed to feel uneasy without a guide from the more rational part. To be emotionally moved by something without knowing what was moving him or why (to be more precise, the word used in German in the famous article The Moses of Michelangelo was 'ergreift', as if music could grab or hold) and this was an intrinsically anxious experience. The operas he listened were "conversational" and "narrative" forms of music, which is theorized, provided him with some kind of "cognitive control" over the emotional impact of the musical sounds. Cheshire argued that maybe he was jealous and feared the potential therapeutic power of music as a rival to psychoanalysis. To acknowledge the power of music to grab and to hold (ergreifen) was, no doubt, the first gesture towards a definition of the Unconscious in Music. Freud made an incredible contribution to the field, even without taking notice of it. It was up to other early psychoanalysts than Freud to initiate a serious psychoanalytic study of musical phenomena. First of them was the musicologist and critic Max Graf (1873–1958) who presented his views in the "Wednesday meetings" in 1905–1912. Among other pioneers was Desiderius (Dezső) Mosonyi (1888–1945) who published his writings in Hungarian and in German. The early views of music were reductive and romantic: the composer expresses him- or herself directly in a musical composition; the reception of music is regressive. After 1950, psychoanalytical musicology started to flourish. Within a few years several studies were published by the French André Michel (1951), Ernst Kris (1952), Anton Ehrenzweig (1953), Theodor Reik (1953), and others. Theodor Reik (1888–1969) was one of Freud's earliest students. Reik took up the theme of the "haunting melody" in Freud's Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1915–1917) to demonstrate, by contrast to Freud, that musical structure can represent feelings. In Reik's view, melody can convey emotion far better than words. Reik showed that music is the voice of the “unknown itself” that may become compulsive in its attempt to convey a secret message. Reik speculated that the reason unconscious material sometimes emerges as a melody rather than as mere thoughts may be that melody better indicates moods and unknown feelings. He did demonstrate that songs on the mind could be effectively interacted with in a psychotherapeutic fashion in a way that helped resolve repressed conflict. The flow of studies and articles from the latter part of the twentieth century was summarised in the two-volume essay collection Psychoanalytic Explorations in Music (1990–1993). The ideas of Jacques Lacan have become very significant for the field of Psychoanalysis and Music, particularly through the writings of Anzieu and Didier-Weill. The first proposing that the mechanisms of identification originate from a kind of sound mirror originated by the interchanges between child and mother). The second, observing that the acceptance of a music, the yes given to it by a listener, means that the music is able to listen to something inside the listener that he/she is not aware of. The Unconscious in music being related to this inversion.
Theories and therapeutic techniques Music therapy involves different techniques of improving someone's quality of life. In Oliver Sack's book, Musicophilia he discusses several different ways that music can help people with dementia. Specifically, the perception of music, and the memories that are involved with music enable patients to make improvements in their cognitive powers, emotions, thoughts, feelings of freedom, stability, organization, and focus. The aspect of emotion is a key element in what brings music and psychoanalysis together; they both involve a way of communicating emotion. In an article, about Music therapy and group work, the authors discuss how music and active listening play an important role in helping someone suffering from a mental illness improve their well-being. For example, in music, attunement, is how listeners are able to connect with others while listening to and making the music. When a psychoanalytic therapist uses music with his patients, it makes for a more open experience. The patient is more apt to respond positively because they have more time to respond. Unlike most normal conversations and psychoanalytic questioning from a therapist, the music is not as intimidating for a patient to interact with; it allows the patient to free his or her thoughts with more ease. Another reason music is being used as a method of therapy is due to its relational improvisation. Relational improvisation is a listeners ability to remember certain stories form their past and resonate them to the lyrics and schematic patterns of a song. This helps the patients get out frustrations with day to day challenges without causing any harm to themselves or others.
Modes of approach From a methodological point of view, there are several approaches visible in the psychoanalytical study of music and psychoanalytically inspired musicology:
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