Reflections on Music Therapy and Developmental Psychology

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to set new light on the origin of the human musical experience, through the developmental theory that combines the developmental theories of Jean Piaget and Sigmund Freud. The main idea of the article is to show how an individual could move within the different developmental phases and modalities of thinking in relation to music. One could move from the logical thinking of everyday life to the archaic thinking of the unconscious andvice versa. The basis of the article is the theory that musical and psychic occurrences are isomorphous. According to that theory music is a psychic process, and has its origins in the states of tension within man appearing in sonant-acoustic form through the ear. This means that music is an external, perceptible manifestation of that inner process; a kind of process that individuals use to transform the inner i.e. physical not lingual experiences of meaning into external audible form. The article handles the forms of music as means of achieving p...