Proceedings, Oxford, UK (2002) - World Federation of Music Therapy

Therefore I will begin this talk with a brief outline of the recent history of
time in physics. Next I will talk of time in therapy and finally I am going
to show how reflecting on time and having an awareness of the broader
framework of time can help with understanding clients who, by virtue of
the therapy we offer, or some crisis in their lives operate out of different
time levels to that of ordinary linear time.
In the 3 rd century BC Aristotle developed the idea of a perfect earth –
centred universe. Ptolemy, in the 2 nd century AD refined this idea.
Ptolemy’s ideas remained unchallenged until the 16 th century. In 1514
Copernicus, a polish priest, suggested that the sun was the centre of the
universe and that the planets orbited the sun.
Early in the 17 th century Galileo observed the moons of Jupiter orbiting
Jupiter and felt that it proved that not everything had to orbit the earth.
He fully supported Copernicus, but was put under house arrest by the
Catholic Church and forbidden to teach or write on the subject.
Newton believed that time and space were separate entities, absolute in
their own right and existing without reference to us. In Principia
Mathematica, published in 1687, he wrote, “Absolute space, in its own
nature, without relation to anything external, remains always similar and
immovable. Absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself, and from its
own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external.”
Actually his calculations showed that there was no absolute space but he
was unable to believe this as it because it disturbed his ideas about God.
Chown (2001) in The Universe Next Door quotes Martin Amis as saying
‘the history of astronomy is the history of increasing humiliation’.
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