E-Book of Articles - World Federation of Music Therapy

Claude :
Schiltz-Ludwig, Lony: When Aggression is disturbed ...
Our second example shows a boy of 17, who under his overadapted surface
suffered from deep depression. He had a sixty-year-old father who was
rather tyrannical and had organised the whole life of his son in a directive
manner and especially his leisure-time ; a sensitive mother, who had
become an alcoholic because she could not bear the burden of a paralytic
stepdaughter, who asked for continuous attention and who refused to seek
professional attention outside the family. The father did not want to give
her away and his wife had to do the whole assistance by herself. As the
stepdaughter was very egocentric, there was a lasting latent conflict with
repressed feelings of hatred, jealousy and guilt in that family.
Claude pitied his mother and was ashamed of her alcoholism, and several
times he had tried to take a bottle of spirits out of her hands.
He is sent to the Psychology Service by his headmaster because he was
drunk himself several times when coming to school. He accepts with relief
the proposal of psychotherapy. He is unable to play rhythmically but is
inventing sensitive melodic motives on the piano. I accompany him in the
same manner giving however a rhythmical support. After some sessions, he
says by himself : » My music is very sad ».
The text written when listening to music shows the depressive ground of his
personality but also his evolution under music therapy.
Vivaldi. Lute concert
« Sadness (for instance funerals)
It’s raining and it is cold.
It’s oppressive
Makes you think of suicide
It’s winter and the trees are bare of leaves.
Behind the bare trees, you see a cemetery.
You can hear the shouting of crows.
You are alone. »
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