Music and Psychoanalysis (c. 1910-1970)

Psychoanalysis, beginning with its founder Sigmund Freud (18561939), has always cast an interested eye on the arts, particularly the artworks unconscious and repressed content. The dream, or more precisely Freuds seminal book Die Traumdeutung, which was published in 1900, can be considered the foundation of a psychoanalytic theory of art. However, Freud throughout his life lacked an ear for music. Despite Freud noted he was almost unable to enjoy music, more than a few of his followers attempted to explore music from a psychoanalytical angle. In this context the Hungarian physician and psychoanalyst Desiderius Mosonyi (1888 1945) describes music as the most irrational of all arts, which has to be unraveled through analysis. Essentially, the study illuminates the history of psychoanalytic music interpretation, the scholars behind it and their theoretical approaches. The project portrays the manifold facets of the psychoanalytic interpretation of music within the timeframe from c. 1910 to 1970: Music is e. g. seen as an expression of sublimated drive energy, a threatening force that has to be tamed, an acoustic stimulus that the Ego has to cope with, an early form of dialogue and nonverbal communication, as a medium that enables the feeling of a pleasurable dissolution of Ego boundaries, as pleasure gain, etc. All these music- related notions are connected to different psychoanalytic and psychological positions and theories such as drive theory, ego psychology, self psychology, object relations theory, etc. The study provides insight into the fundamental pillars of psychoanalysis, the cultural sphere in which psychoanalytic ideas emerged, pioneers in music and psychoanalysis (including music biographical information), narratives of music (e. g. music as the image of the beloved in the mirror of drive theory), the impact of the persecution of many Jewish scholars, the advancement of psychological theories in exile, and its impact on music psychological and music therapeutic questions. The project investigates the evolution of psychoanalytic music interpretations. In this context a notable break is recognizable: With Hitlers accession to power in 1933, the history of psychoanalysis in Vienna turned into a history of murder and emigration. This project will shed light on the harrowing fates of the psychoanalysts themselves and the achievements of the survivors in exile, where they continued to develop new ideas and theories. Besides various publication formats, the results of the project will be shared publicly in lectures, interviews and courses. A follow-on project will address psychoanalytic theories from the 1970s to the present.