International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies

Int. J. Appl. Psychoanal. Studies 10(2): 147–151 (2013)

Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/aps.1357

Coda: Psychoanalysis and Music in

the Psyche and Society

JULIE JAFFEE NAGEL AND SAMUEL BRADSHAW

In the opening decades of the twenty-first century, we have experienced a loss of

focus on internal life and its underlying meanings in our tumultuous social,
political, artistic, and economic milieu. Demand for quick fixes for long-standing
emotional, political, economic, and social problems have had far-reaching effects
on American society and around the world. Recent Federal initiatives in the United
States emphasize detailed study of brain function without a call for better under-
standing of the functions of the mind in motivating mental illness and mental
health. Popular trends in media reporting emphasize celebrity idealization and
instant access to Internet insights which accentuate simplicity, quick answers, and
sound bites. In higher education, many American university psychology and psychi-
atry departments have been jettisoned and/or minimized emphasis on psychody-
namic ideas as a theory and treatment modality. We are in agreement with
Prudence Gourguechon (2011) who calls this a “public health crisis . . . a national
emergency of superficiality, of simplification of cause and effect, and of ignoring or
trivializing the inner life” (p. 448). While it is not our intention here to explore
contemporary crises in mental health, society, economics, politics, arts, and
education in this issue, we do emphasize that music and psychoanalysis, with an
emphasis on both manifest and latent meanings, are relevant to this discussion
and are emphasized through the cumulative scholarship, wisdom, and implications
of the articles in this volume. There is an intersection between theories of mind
and theories of music which are implicated in how we tune in and hear ourselves
and our surroundings (Nagel, 2013).
Psychoanalytic and musical knowledge can contribute to many areas that im-
pact human motivation, critical thinking, decision-making, and our quality of
life while probing beneath external events and simplistic solutions to thorny
and complex questions. Responsible and informed musical and psychoanalytic
representatives, through writing, speaking, performing, and teaching can
educate and advocate in a variety of arenas, many of them in non-traditional
venues that reach beyond the concert hall and consulting room. For example,
such representatives can provide in-depth perspectives about the human
condition, about powerful affects and unconscious motivations, and can share
multiple determined views on complex topics such as gender, poverty, war,

Int. J. Appl. Psychoanal. Studies 10: 147–151 (2013)

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/aps
148 Nagel and Bradshaw

racism, oppression, immigration, and child and adult development through the
life cycle. Sunil Iyengar clearly illustrates creative initiatives of the National
Endowment for the Arts to tackle such problems through research that can
impact the relevant role of the arts in human development.
Think about Newtown, Aurora, Oak Creek, Tucson, Columbine, Hurricanes
Katrina, Irene, Sandy, Snowstorm Nemo, the Japanese Tsumani. While these
violent acts of individuals and cruelties of nature are most highly publicized, there
is rampant urban crime that also devastates families and communities. Massive in-
dividual and social trauma unfortunately have become twenty-first century
plagues, not to mention the individual and societal devastation that remain long
after funerals, rebuilding cities, and re-opening schools has occurred. To help us
cope with personal trauma and social disasters and the intrapsychic and interper-
sonal aftermath that lingers, we can become educated and sensitized to musical
and psychological portrayal of multiply-determined emotions of love, hate, shame,
guilt, revenge, ambiguity, jealousy, heartbreak, and psychic breakdown that can
precede or follow acts of bullying, injustice, hatred, and other emotional, family,
and/or individual dysfunction. These intense affects that fuel anxiety and depres-
sion, when unattended, can ferment and be acted upon unproductively, sometimes
violently as we have seen all too often throughout history and particularly of late.
Music and psychoanalytic concepts are of import antidotes and perhaps, preventa-
tive measures, for psychological and social tsunamis.
To illustrate briefly, I have written elsewhere and used as one example
(Nagel, 2013) Leonard Bernstein’s musical vocabulary, expressed sonically and
metaphorically in West Side Story. This masterpiece was Bernstein’s creative
attempt to define what he labeled invisible enemies from within and without that
consciously and unconsciously motivated the Jets and Sharks, the American and
Puerto Rican gang members in this musical masterpiece. Through his use of the
ambiguous musical interval, the tritone, Bernstein illustrated how thinking and
feeling can escalate into action when it is ignored by those in a position to offer
help (parents, teachers, police, “authority”). Others have emphasized the power
of music as a means of expression and an outlet for metabolizing our deepest
thoughts and longings. Lombardi (2008, 2013) has proposed that in a clinical
situation, musical associations “bridge the gap between the concrete and the
abstract, body and mind, the nonsymbolic an the symbolic, as well as between
internal and the external” (Lombardi, 2008, p. 1199). It is clear that Noy (1966,
1967a, 1967b, 1967c, 1968/1990, 2013) emphasizes the power and formal qualities
of music organize pre-symbolic emotions leading to what he labels a “meta emotion”.
In other words, music can help us feel – both emotionally and physically – and do
our own psychological homework before words can be found or are articulated.
In this issue, Slevin and Slevin have described the program El Sistema as a
musical/psychological model for engaging disadvantaged youth through music
which, in turn, promotes self-esteem and mental health. Iyengar emphasizes the
value of the arts and humanities in human development in the promotion of
initiatives at the National Endowment for the Arts. Lombardi speaks to the

Int. J. Appl. Psychoanal. Studies 10: 147–151 (2013)

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/aps
 Music and Psychoanalysis: future directions 149

intense intersection of body and mind and Blum addresses developmental issues as
they pertain to music and memory. Noy shows how music functions as a “meta”
emotion. We are in agreement with Feder that music can “illuminate elements of
the underlying structures of the mind” (1993, p. 4). The union of music and psycho-
analytic thinking clearly has much to offer on a societal and psychological level.
It was Ernst Ticho’s (1973) vision to extend “what psychoanalysts have learned
from individuals to groups and communities” (p. 1). We concur with Ticho, as
well as with Stuart Twemlow (2009), who sees a “major potential leadership role
for psychoanalysts in the solution of community and social problems” (p. 93).
We applaud Isaac Tylim (2009), who advocates for the development of a
psychoanalytic attitude toward cultural institutions. Tylim maintains that:
At the turn of the twenty-first century, the need for psychoanalytic contribution to the global
community has ceased to be considered a violation of analytic neutrality, and applied psycho-
analysis is in the process of losing its status as step-child of our discipline . . . . September 11
brought the psychoanalyst’s couch onto the streets, the piers, and the shelter. (p. 95)

Here Tylim is describing the adoption of a psychoanalytic perspective toward

intolerance, problem solving, negotiating, and compromise regarding interna-
tional affairs in institutions such as the United Nations (UN). Programs based
on a psychoanalytic understanding of prejudice and aggression, for example, if
implemented at the UN and elsewhere in schools and homes, may result in
new “enlightened partnerships” (2009, p. 97) as well as friendships. It is time
to reconceptualize the concept of outreach to include reaching out and going out
into the community, beyond our comfort zones, and beyond our offices, our
institutes, and our concert halls, to collaborate with others in a variety of ways.
I have previously cited (Nagel, 2013) the remarks of Joseph Polisi, president
of the Juilliard School:
Artists [and analysts] of the twenty-first century, especially in America, must re-dedicate
themselves to a broader professional agenda that reaches beyond what has been expected
of them in an earlier time . . . . These artists [and analysts] must be not only communicative
through their art, but also be knowledgeable about the intricacies of our society – politically,
economically, socially – so that they can effectively work toward showing the power of the
arts [and of psychoanalytic ideas] to a nation and its people who are often uninformed . . .
and view these activities with suspicion, occasional disdain, and frequently as being
irrelevant. (Polisi, 2005, p. 11, italics added to include analysts and psychoanalytic ideas)

Polilsi’s statement holds implications for muscians as well as clinical practice

and applied psychoanlaysis, and can transport music and psychoanalytic con-
cepts multi-directionally between the analytic couch, the concert hall, and
the community. The connections between musical and psychoanalytic ideas
provide elegant schemas for thinking about the counterpoint of an individual’s
inner world as that world interacts with social “reality.” Music, as opposed to
conflicted feelings and ideas, allows all levels of the personality to experience
affects simultaneously but not in the position of defense or conflict. The primi-
tive wishes for nurturance, the adult prohibitions and the observing ego can all

Int. J. Appl. Psychoanal. Studies 10: 147–151 (2013)

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/aps
150 Nagel and Bradshaw

be engaged through a piece of music. This integration can result in an “aha”

moment and is akin to an important insight during a psychoanalysis.
The time has come, indeed the time is overdue, to put into action the value and
relevance of music in mental life. All of the articles in this volume, each written
from a different perspective, converge around these observations. Each discipline
is shown to be greater than the sum of its conceptual parts and theoretical under-
pinnings. Interdisciplinary ideas and imaginative collaborations between music
and psychoanalysis are begging for contemporary creative uses and applications.
Discovering creative ways to engage in public dialogue and education through a
collaborative lens of psychoanalytic and musical frameworks has the potential to
increase self-esteem, self-knowledge, and heighten tolerance of self and other.

AUTHOR NOTES

Julie Jaffee Nagel, Ph.D., is a graduate of The Juilliard School, The University
of Michigan, and the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute where she is on the
faculty. Her book, “Melodies of the Mind” was released in January 2013 by
Routledge Press. She is in private practice in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy
in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Samuel Bradshaw, M.D. is a psychiatrist trained at the Menninger Foundation.
He was Chief of Psychiatry at the Colmery-O’Neal Veterans Administration
Medical Center for twenty years and was training director at the VA for the
Menninger School of Psychiatry. He is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American
Psychiatric Association.

REFERENCES

Gourguechon, P. S. (2011). The citizen psychoanalyst:Psychoanalysis, social commentary, and

social action. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 59(3), 445–470.
Lombardi, R. (2008). Time, music, and reverie. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association,
56(4), 1191–1211.
Lombardi, R. (2013). Music and Bodily Claustrophobia: A Psychoanalytic Note on Beethoven’s
Fidelio. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 10(2), 108–120.
Nagel, J. J. (2013). Melodies of the mind. London: Routledge.
Noy, P. (1966). The psychodynamics of music. Journal of Music Therapy, 3(4), 126–134.
Noy, P. (1967a). The psychodynamics of music. Journal of Music Therapy, 4(1), 7–23.
Noy, P. (1967b). The psychodynamics of music. Journal of Music Therapy, 4(2), 45–51.
Noy, P. (1967c). The psychodynamics of music. Journal of Music Therapy, 4(3), 81–94.
Noy, P. (1990). The development of musical ability. In S. Feder, R. Karmel & G. Pollock (Eds),
Psychoanalytic explorations of music (pp. 63–77). Madison, CT: International Universities
Press. (Original work published 1968.)
Noy, P. (1993). How music conveys emotion. In S. Feder, R. Karmel & G. Pollock (Eds), Psycho-
analytic explorations of music (pp. 125–149). Madison, CT: International Universities Press.
Noy, P. (2013). Art and emotions. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 10(2),
100–107.
Polisi, J. (2005). The artist as citizen. New York: Amadeus Press.

Int. J. Appl. Psychoanal. Studies 10: 147–151 (2013)

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/aps
 Music and Psychoanalysis: future directions 151

Ticho, E. (1973, October 5). Tichos to leave Menninger Clinic. The Menninger Foundation/
Employee Publication, 11.
Twemlow, S. (2009). Commentary on Isaac Tylim’s paper. International Journal of Psychoana-
lytic Studies, 6(1), 93.
Tylim, I. (2009). Becoming a psychoanalyst in the age of diminishing expectations: Psychoanalysis
in the United Nations. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 6(1), 94–99.

Julie Jaffee Nagel

400 Maynard Street - Ste. 706, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, USA
jjnagel@comcast.net

Samuel Bradshaw
Colmery-O’Neal Veterans Administration Medical Center, Topeka, KS, USA

Int. J. Appl. Psychoanal. Studies 10: 147–151 (2013)

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/aps