Schiltz, L. (2002) Is the action of music therapy specifically linked to the underlying personality organization? Music Therapy Today (online), October, available at http://musictherapyworld.net Some illustrations of the musictherapeutic process
In a developmental perspective, Paulina Kernberg1 and her colleagues show the difference between the underlying borderline personality organization and the classical surface traits of the borderline personality disorder, with material drawn from their own clinical research and practice. They assume that some behavioural patterns meeting the criteria of the DSM for adult psychopathology may be assessed already in childhood and in adolescence. Differential criteria for conduct disorders on the neurotic, borderline and psychotic level are now discussed in the clinical literature, especially in the USA and in France.2
Some illustrations of the musictherapeutic process Music therapy seems to act in a specific way, in relation with the underlying personality organization. With a psychotic client music helps to establish an archaic form of communication, but its specific aesthetic qualities interfere very little with the therapeutic process. As an example, I shall quote Dany, suffering from a childhood psychosis leading to a secondary autistic retreat3, expressing his archaic annihibation anxiety through a delirium focussed on a world-wide war, natural catastrophes, epidemies, hunger and the death of millions of people. Beating the congas gave him a short moment of relief, then he continued to fantasize. The terrific fantasies of destruction ceased to haunt him, when he recognized his own hatred against a person of his family, who had made him
1. KERNBERG P., Personality Disorders in Children and Adolescents, Basic Books, New York, 2000 2. RAPOPORT J.L., ed. Childhood Onset of "Adult" Psychopathology. Washington, American Psychiatric Press, 2000; / ; ESPASA F.P., DUFOUR R., Diagnostic structurel chez l'enfant. Paris, Masson, 1995 3. SCHILTZ L.,Un adolescent au psychisme embrasĂŠ par la haine La Revue de MusicothĂŠrapie,1999, XIX, 4, p. 131-133.
Is the action of music therapy specifically linked to the underlying personality organization?
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