The music of the drives, and the music of perversion: reflections on a dream of jealous theft

Abstract

ABSTRACT I investigate the possibility that in order to reach truly disturbed parts of the patient's mind, the analyst also may need to mobilise similar areas in his own psyche. I examine the part musicality might contribute to this well-known idea, that is, I consider what is set off in the analyst's mind by the changing qualities of the actual music of the analytic couple's voices, and also by the musical events that occur in response in the analyst's mind. The term perversion is particularly used to explore the perverse qualities of the musical countertransference. I propose that these primal musical processes are ubiquitous, taking place at a fundamental psychic level before images or words are formed. I re-examine Isaacs' (1948) theory that the images of unconscious phantasy are the most archaic expression of the drives, and suggest that the music of unconscious phantasy may assert its prior claim in this regard, the infant's ability to form images deriving from this prior musical capacity. I propose that the words – a much later development – that are then uttered by the analytic couple can be thought of as the text in which the mind attempts to describe what is already occurring musically at the level of the drives and unconscious phantasy. I suggest that many operas offer a paradigm of this process, and offer a helpful way for analysts to think about verbal communication, both interpersonal and intrapsychic.