Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

of new metaphors and the expansion of one's personal inventory of imagery (visual
images, fantasies, memories, etc.).
“Nonverbal imaginative schemas are stored in long-term memory following a
process which begins with the preconscious synthesis of affective, sensory and
motor stimuli and the response of the organism in its interaction with the
environment. (…) Imaginative schemas become nonverbal perceptual
metaphors through the metaphorical process.” (p. 423)
In this way Perilli makes a connection between a neuropsychological and a cognitive
semantic understanding of metaphors. The distinction between non-verbal metaphors
(intrapersonal imaginative schemas) and verbal metaphors (interpersonal linguistic
and cognitive operations) is connected to the notion of health as a mind-body
integration based on an unimpeded flow between schema representing early emotional
and attachment experiences and verbal, interpersonal sharing. Perilli mentions two
factors contributing to the elaboration of a person’s repertory of metaphors:
1. “Self representation of the body, constantly modified in the light of social
and perceptual experience (kinesthetic sense).
2. Language, which develops functionally from affective, motivational use to a
more conscious (individual and social) purposes.” (p. 429-30)
Self-representational metaphors may be ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’, and one option in
BMGIM therapy is to explore, transform or change unhealthy metaphors through
creative imagery. In the altered state of consciousness during the music-listening
period of the BMGIM session “metaphorical projections can evolve transversally,
linking elements from different states of consciousness and levels of understanding
and producing complex metaphors by uniting concrete and abstract elements,
remembered experiences and current situations.” (p. 435) The complex music stimuli
evoke responses from the Central Nervous System influencing the production of
endorphins and thus the areas of the brain responsible for integrating sensations,
emotions and affects. Perilli suggests that the music is conducive to provoking “three
imaginative schemas fundamental to the metaphorical process” (p. 439): 1. the
schema of balance, 2. the schema of movement, 3. the schema of rhythm, all three
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