Music: The Aesthetic Elixir

Abstract

Music therapy is seen as akin to the healthy re-enactment of the parent-child dyad in which the music stimulates “me and not-me” experiences (Winnicott).   Sympathetic music structures stimulate the “me” state, whereas the “not-me” state is stimulated through music that is unfamiliar, evocative, and contains significant tension.  The GIM process begins with a “me” experience and then moves beyond it, to the “not-me.”  Subsequently, the article describes how classical music in GIM creates a transpersonal experience through an altered states of consciousness and the transcendence of time.  Through this process the client’s boundaries are loosened, and the client becomes “one” with the music and its healthful structures.