Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Music: an Intersection on the Oral and Aural Road

Nagel, Julie Jaffee

doi:10.1002/j.2167-4086.2008.tb00349.x

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…My own emphasis is less on the way in which therapeutic dialogue imitates music as we know it music and more on the potential for music theory to provide descriptions of aspects of non-symbolic process, even and perhaps especially when they are not readily discernible as musical. In this sense I share Nagel’s (2008) suspicion that “[p]robing the system of symbols in music may contribute to an understanding of underlying mental structures in general” (p. 509), that “qualities of music itself provide important points of entry into unconscious processes” (p. 513, italics in original).…”

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confidence: 89%

This must be the place: Thinking psychical life with music.

Blum¹

2016

Psychoanalytic Psychology

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The author uses language from music theory, with an emphasis on rhythm and harmony, to describe a year of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The use of both music and music theory to establish a sensory engagement in the therapeutic dyad and a dynamic formulation of the evolving psychotherapeutic process are discussed. Models for thinking musically about psychoanalytic work and psychical life are explored.

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confidence: 89%

This must be the place: Thinking psychical life with music.

Blum¹

2016

Psychoanalytic Psychology

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“…It has previously been noted that music may serve as a point of entry to affect and to the unconscious in a way similar to dreams (Nagel, ; Noy, ). This would relate to the inherent qualities of music which also include, in addition to structural qualities, the elusive ‘something more’ to which I refer in my analysis of Wagner's depiction of Isolde.…”

Section: Concluding Commentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The wish for annihilation in ‘love–death’ as collapse of the need for recognition, in Wagner'sTristan und Isolde

Bergstein¹

2013

The International Journal of Psychoanalysis

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Wagner's Tristan und Isolde holds a central position in Western music and culture. It is shown to demonstrate consequences of interruption of developmental processes involving the need for recognition of subjectivity, resulting in the collapse of this need into the wish for annihilation of self and other through 'love-death' [Liebestod]. A close reading of the musical language of the opera reveals how this interruption is demonstrated, and the consequent location of identity outside of language, particularly suitable for expression in music. Isolde's dynamics are presented as distinct from that of Tristan, and in contrast to other interpretations of Tristan and Isolde's love as an attack on the Oedipal order, or as a regressive wish for pre-Oedipal union. Isolde's Act I narrative locates the origin of her desire in the protagonists' mutual gaze at a traumatic moment. In this moment powerful and contrasting emotions converge, evoking thwarted developmental needs, and arousing the fantasy of redemption in love-death. By removing the magical elements, Wagner enables a deeper understanding of the characters' positions in relation to each other, each with his or her own needs for recognition and traumatic experiences. These positions invite mutual identifications resulting in rising tension between affirmation of identity and annihilation, with actual death as the only possible psychic solution. The dynamics described in the opera demonstrate the function of music and opera in conveying meaning which is not verbally expressible.

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“…My "data" have included tonal relationships as they relate to affects of revenge and hate in Verdi's Otello (Nagel 2008b), bel canto style in examining Lucia's shame, humiliation, revenge, and mental decompensation in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor (Nagel 2008a), the tritone as it pertains to musical and mental ambiguity in Bernstein's West Side Story , orchestration that portrays Peter's psychosocial development in Prokofieff's Peter and the Wolf (Nagel and Nagel 2005), and the distinctive tonality and compositional techniques in Mozart's A Minor Piano Sonata (Nagel 2007) that reflect, through sound, the composer's separation both from his previous musical style and from his family. If dreams with their visual content and verbal analysis are the Royal Oral Road to the unconscious, I suggest that music travels a Royal Aural Road to the same destination.…”

Section: U S I C a S D Ata : A P O I N T O F E N T R Y I N T O A F F E C T A N D U N C O N S C I O U S P R O C E S S E Smentioning

confidence: 99%

Melodies in My Mind: the Polyphony of Mental Life

Nagel

2010

J Am Psychoanal Assoc

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MELODIES IN MY MIND: THE POLYPHONY OF MENTAL LIFED elivering the Gertrude and Ernst Ticho Memorial Lecture today is a deeply personal honor and a professional milestone. To be respected by colleagues, appreciated by friends, and loved by one's family is sufficient reward for anyone. Today I have the additional privilege of sharing with you my thoughts about music and psychoanalysis. The Ticho Lectureship acknowledges early-to mid-career psychoanalysts; this recognition raises an interesting paradox. Implied in the designation "early-to mid-career" is the notion that a person younger than myself would receive this award. In the context of age and career, when I talk with analytic colleagues, of all ages and from various cities (and also when reading data in the report on APsaA's 2006 Survey of Analytic Practice [Brauer, Brauer, and Falk 2008] before the recent recession), questions are raised about the average age of analysts, attracting candidates, unwelcome open hours in analytic schedules, and compromised incomes. My musician colleagues (supported by recent data from the National Endowment for the Arts) express concern about "graying audiences" and the future of classical music. (For clarification, I use the term classical music in this paper to refer to tonal, harmonic music in the Western compositional tradition. West Side Story, the focus of my musical example later in my lecture, is steeped in that tradition.) Qualms about the future of psychoanalysis and the diminishing concert-attending public are not based in illusion; both concerns reflect realities and anxieties but also challenges and opportunities, regardless of birthdates and stages in a career. While there are nonclassical musics and various approaches to psychoanalytic practice, the questions remain:

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Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Music: an Intersection on the Oral and Aural Road

Cited by 8 publications

References 18 publications

This must be the place: Thinking psychical life with music.

This must be the place: Thinking psychical life with music.

The wish for annihilation in ‘love–death’ as collapse of the need for recognition, in Wagner'sTristan und Isolde

Melodies in My Mind: the Polyphony of Mental Life

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