Ein psychoanalytischer Blick auf Dissonanzen in der Musiktherapie/ A psychoanalytical perspective on dissonances in music therapy

Abstract

This article opens with an outline of the perception of consonance and dissonance in European music history. Music is understood in its function as the cultural product of the symbolising human being. Works of music express the way in which a period in history with its rifts and contradictions experiences the world. Depending on the world view and its inherent understanding of the subject, the meaning of dissonances has undergone changes. As the antithesis of harmonious ideas of sound, dissonances have increasingly become the expression of painful experiences and non-integrated or non-integratable conflicts. In these functions they can become apparent in psychoanalytical music therapy, as in two case studies outlined here.