23.7. 1993 Vitoria-Gasteiz / Spain - World Federation of Music Therapy

transference issues.
This supports new findings in infancy research and
infant psychiatry and has instigated new directions of
psychoanalytic understanding and increasing interest in
the 'here and now', in empathic modes of interaction as
active components of the therapeutic process in the
psychotherapy setting. The correlations between music
therapy and psychotherapy process at this level are
obvious and increasingly recognised by both
professions.
The integration of these new developments in modern
psychoanalytic theory and practice is examined in detail
by Anne Alvarez (Principal Child Psychotherapist at the
Tavistock Clinic, London) in her recent book "Live
Company"(1992). From this original synthesis arises
her 'theory of reclamation', a clinical and theoretical
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perspective, which has particular application to therapy
with autistic, psychotic and severely deprived children
and adolescents. Alvarez's account of 'reclamation'
emphasises that the caretaker has to be animate, 'live
company' in order to provide holding, to be a
container/transformer for those children who have
insufficient ego development or have little capacity even
to maintain intentionality. She draws attention to
mothers' function as 'alerters, arousers, and enliveners
of their babies and perceives this as a valid extension of
the therapist's function. This is familiar ground to the
creative music therapist. Alvarez draws attention to the
'quasi-musical', affective nature of the mother-infant
interaction and its function in 'reclamation' concerning
ego development.
This has direct correlations with Brazelton's 'reciprocity
envelope' (Brazelton, 1991), Trevarthen's 'emotional
narrative' and Daniel Stern's concept of the 'pre-