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

We herein present two case studies that demonstrate the practical
application of this coding system to two different case studies. This
research project is still in progress and further results will be available in
the future. The emphasis of this talk is therefore mainly focussed on this
analysis method and its possible applications in music therapy, rather
than on the presentation of results, which are still at a preliminary stage.
2. THE THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS
Communication is often described as an exchange of information
between a sender and a receiver. Communication is considered to have
taken place if the receiver alters his/her behaviour following the
transmission of the signal (SMITH 1977). This model, known as the
communication by discrete stages model, originated from studies on
cybernetic and electronic systems during the nineteen sixties (von
Neumann, 1958).
Some years later, on the basis of video recordings on face-to-face
mother-infant communication, Fogel went beyond the communication
model based on a series of discreet stages. His theory of dynamic systems
is based on a concept of communication that goes further than the
individual contribution to inter-personal exchange. Fogel in fact
proposes, a “relational” model (1977) where the partners are
continuously active and involved in the communication process and in
which bidirectionality is not the subsequent “product” of the exchange
between partners, but rather is inherent to each action that takes place
during interaction. in this model, the individual action is conceptualised
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