Title: Aesthetic quality and creativity in psychoanalysis: music as a special pathway of the mind
Abstract: ABSTRACT: From its very beginning, psychoanalysis has had a constant relationship with art: from Freud's theory of sublimation to the multiple contributions of the Kleinian school, which has tried to define the foundation of art and beauty and of artistic and scientific endeavour, in general. Psychoanalytic interpretation is like reading an artistic text; it is aimed at understanding an unfolding reality rather than one which already exists and becomes, in itself, a creative act. It is an act of knowledge which is also an act of becoming, similar to an aesthetic experience. It organises sensible data in such a way that its meaning is recognisable. This approach to literary work, which may be applied to any other form of artistic expression, has given rise to many psychoanalytic studies of creativity, on the part of Freud and many other authors.The notion of aesthetic emotion is also connected with the theory of aesthetic conIn this theory the emphasis is placed not only on the capacity to love the object, but also to tolerate a loving relationship, even if it is fraught with uncertainty. Perhaps it is precisely this uncertainty which stimulates thought.It is important for the psychoanalyst to collaborate not only with the poet, but, also, and, perhaps, especially, with the musician. In human experience music comes before poetry. The first music heard by the child is the rhythm of the mother's heart.At birth, the child will experience the mother's voice as the first instrument in the outer world capable of producing sounds and of continuing the earlier rhythmical, musical, experience.Musical language, although without a vocabulary, is a symbolic language which is capable of representing all of our emotional life. The various art forms, from music to poetry and narrative, and from sculpture to painting, can give voice to the unheard and invisible which is present in our inner world, enabling our mind to progress from the asymbolic to the symbolic, from the unthinkable to the thinkable. To understand the meaning of music it is also useful to refer to Winnicott's (1958) concept of the transitional object as well as Fornari's (1985d.) concepts of protorhy thm and proto- sound.Music has a primary meaning which is the foundation of all other meanings. It is the bridge between external reality and the inner world. Music is the original language of feelings and, therefore, has a privileged position compared with other arts. In music, feeling does not represent only personal emotion but also, compared to the intellect, gives access to the essence of things.The psychoanalytic reading of Wagner's Tetralogy is an example of the understanding of the unconscious dynamics of the author of, and listener to, a musical work of art (La Stella, 2001).In order to be able to touch deep affects, before they can be said, and to enter the preverb al field, it isnecessary, therefore, to integrate a musical listening among the psychoanalytic functions of the mind, it is necessary to bring music into psychoanalysis rather than apply psychoanalysis to the interpretation of musical facts.The aesthetic emotion, produced by an encounter with works of art, contains the beginnings of introspection, a dawning awareness of one's own inner world. (Di Benedetto, 2001)PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCEHaving emphasised the scientific basis of psychoanalysis it might seem curious to ask whether psychoanalysis also has a relationship with the aesthetic experience, in that such an assertion may appear to negate what has been maintained so far, which is, that psychoanalysis is, first and foremost, a rigorous, objective, and reliable form of knowledge. However, it should be recognised that there is an increasing need to view psychoanalysis as an art, as well as a science, and this has been expressed by various psychoanalysts (for instance, Meltzer, Fornari, and Mancia). From its very beginning, psychoanalysis has had a constant relationship with art; from Freud's theory of sublimation to the multiple contributions of the Kleinian school (Di Benedetto, 1987, 1997, 2005; Mancia, 1976, 1993, 2007a; Meltzer, 1981b, 1983; Rickmann, 1957; Segal, 1991; Stokes, 1955), which have tried to define the foundation of art and beauty, and of artistic and scientific endeavour, in general. …
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 2
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