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The Arts in Psychotherapy, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 353-357, 1995 Copyright 0 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in the USA. All rights reserved

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LULLABIES ARE TRANSFERENTIAL TRANSITIONAL SONGS: FURTHER

CONSIDERATIONS ON RESISTANCE IN MUSIC THERAPY

CORA L. DiAZ de CHUMACEIRO, PhD*

Recently, in an outstanding article in The Arts in Psychotherapy, Austin and Dvorkin (1993) stressed the need for music therapists to increase their knowl- edge about patient-therapist resistances in musical and non-musical manifestations in treatment (from Object Relations and Jungian perspectives). Refreshingly, they stressed that contrary to much of the music therapy literature, resistance is not something to be eliminated, but instead offers a way toward under- standing the patient (p. 426). Their preferred method of working through resistances is (indirectly) via additional explorations in the music. The authors concluded: We believe that music therapy has reached a new point in its development. . . Along with other psychoanalytically-oriented music thera- pists, we are attempting to bridge the theory and tech- nique of psychoanalytic and music therapy (p. 429).

This response focuses on further psychoanalytic implications of these authors case of a patients re- sistance and its successful resolution as a result of the uncovering of a hidden lullaby. A 41-year-old patient, who used her intellect as a defense against feelings, throughout the session often obsessively interpreted her actions verbally. However, when exploring the concept of powerful, she played an original tune in a minor key and fast tempo (p. 427). The thera- pist, on recognizing the absence of affect in her music then requested that the patient play it again at a slower tempo.

When the patient played slowly, a very differ- ent song emerged. The patient became quiet

and still for the first time during the session. She said she was experiencing sadness. She then was able to talk about the sadness she ex- perienced as a child. The therapist asked her to play a third time, again in the slow tempo, and suggested that she sing to the little girl. The therapist chose to sing with her to support her feelings. By the end of the song the patient was crying. She said she &never realized that this song was a lullaby and that when she wrote it as a child she wrote it to soothe herself [italics added]. Due to the musical interventions she was able to connect her thoughts with her feel- ings. Her further associations indicated that she did not need to defend against her feelings and the insight they brought. (Austin & Dvorkin, 1993, p. 427)

This paper introduces the term transferential tran- sitional music to integrate two interrelated psycho- analytic theories that to date have been independently applied too infrequently in the music therapy litera- ture (see Barclay, 1987; Goodman, 1981) due to what can be called the fields general resistance to psycho- analytic theories. Patients songs are transferential music (Rosenbaum, 1963). Lullabies are transitional tunes (McDonald, 1970/ 1990). Patients lullabies, then, are transferential transitional songs. After a brief presentation of the two theories and a discussion of Austin and Dvorkins case, this term will also be applied to a lullaby by Schumann.

*Cora L. Diaz de Chumaceiro is a clinical psychologist in Caracas, Venezuela. She is also member of the Editorial Board of The Arts in Psychotherapy.

353

354 CORA L. DfAZ de CHUMACEIRO

Transitional Tunes

McDonald (1970/1990) coined the term transi- tional tunes, underscoring that up to the publication of her work, Winnicotts (1953) concept of transi- tional phenomena had been applied by psychoana- lysts almost exclusively upon tangible objects which infants use as their first not me possession-bjects which make their appeal through sight, smell, feel, and taste (p. 85). Winnicott, though, had included the auditory sense when he termed transitional ob- jects and transitional phenomena to designate the experiential intermediate area between the fingers and stuffed animals, between oral-erotic cravings and real object relationships, between primary creativity and projection of introjects, and between awareness and unawareness of being indebted. According to this def- inition, then, an infants babbling or the way an older child goes over a repertory of songs and tunes while preparing for sleep [McDonalds emphasis] come within the intermediate area as transitional phe- nomena (in McDonald, 1970/1990, p. 86; Winni- cott, 1953). In addition to objects that may be charged with significance, a word or tune [emphasis added] or a mannerism may become of vital importance for the infant when falling asleep. These objects are all used as a defense against anxiety, specially anxiety of depressive type. Perhaps some soft object or type of object has been found and used by the infant, and this then becomes what I am calling a transitional object (in McDonald, 1970/1990, p. 86; Winnicott, 1953).

Moore and Fines (1990) definition of Winnicotts term included the following:

By displacement from the original love object these sounds or objects function later in life as transient, hypercathected, and hypersymbolized maternal substitutes. They provide feelings of self-sufficiency and counteract feelings of loss and abandonment. They indicate the egos at- tempt to resolve an object relations dilemma, the need to preserve the illusion of a loving, comforting and soothing mother. (italics added, p. 207)

McDonald stressed that, in Winnicotts view, tran- sitional phenomena are normal and ubiquitous. More- over, these experiences with transitional objects are important to develop and maintain reality testing and

are also early indicators of creativity and its develop- ment. She then defined her term as follows:

A transitional tune has to be a familiar tune, frequently filling the atmosphere between par- ent and child. It has to provide a shared and comforting experience. In that the infant hears it himself, he probably initially experiences the sensation as though it were a part of himself, just as mother herself does not at first exist as a person distinct and separate from himself. (p. 89)

Initially, of course, it is impossible for the infant to ask about the origin of the song or to whom it be- longs. Later, when the child discovers how to make a reproduction of the tune-as a result of others re- quests or due to self-motivation to sing it, or by play- ing recordings of this music-being in charge and being the prime mover of the process is the resulting feeling. The child then is gradually liberated from parental dependence for the production of comfort through music by selecting a particular tune. In Mc- Donalds view, this transitional phenomenons value is the creative avenue that it opens, facilitating a small childs mastery of issues of separation and being alone while beginning gratifying self-acquaintance in the world beyond the self. She also stressed that when music is a transitional phenomenon, this subject may have made an early and important impression in the childs life. It may even be that a transitional tune is an essential early factor in musical development. For children who have taken this primary step, early ini- tiation in music lessons would seem natural, even necessary, and almost irresistible (p. 89). (Also see Ostwald, 1973.)

McDonald found support for terming transitional tunes by directly observing young children, in data on musicians self and others biographies of their early lives, and in lullabies and cradle songs in the music literature. She wrote:

The word lullaby is an onomatopoeic word, composed of lull and bye, and thus a lull- aby is a song offered to an infant as a lulling comfort at the time of separation. By definition, the lullaby is a song intended for use as a tran- sitional tune, and the words of many lullabies express this function of the music. (italics in original, p. 95)

TRANSFERENTIAL TRANSITIONAL MUSIC 355

Songs of the Transference

In 1963, Rosenbaum termed patients musical evo- cations recalled in psychoanalytic treatment songs of the transference. With clinical examples, she am- ply demonstrated that,

in many patients the words of a song, with or without melody, may be used as a defense ex- pression of otherwise anxiety laden instinctual impulses. . . . [Tlhese lyrics, isolated from melody and affect, are often resistance expres- sions specifically of current transference atti- tudes presented in an obsessional way. . . . [T]he fragments of a song reported during an hour may be dealt with as if they were a man- ifest dream. (p. 258)

As a result of exploring the patients associations to the song, as with dreams, one will discover in the conscious presentation of these songs all the uncon- scious dreamwork mechanism of condensation, dis- placement, secondary elaboration and over determi- nation (p. 267). This material reflects the patients current conflict.

Beyond Rosenbaums initial formulation, later, it was also amply demonstrated that patients songs (with or without lyrics) reflected transference as well as countertransference states (Diaz de Chumaceiro, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1992a, 1993, in press). Transfer- ence-countertransference in evoked music-and, in the case of music therapy, in the music selected either by patients or therapists-is also ubiquitous although the field has been resistant to recognize this fact (Diaz de Chumaceiro , 1992b).

The Patients Lullaby

Austin and Dvorkins (1993) patients lullaby, composed in childhood to comfort herself, seems to fulfill the criteria of a transitional tune (McDon- ald, 1970/1990). Evidently, when the music was played rapidly, the lullaby was hidden and unrecog- nized. With obsessional speed, it served her uncon- scious defensive purposes at that moment in the music therapy session. This lullaby, though, was also her transferential song to the music therapist (Rosen- baum, 1963), linked to sad experiences in the mother- infant dyad. However, the interpretation of counter- transferential aspects, reflected in the patients inter-

pretation of the music and in the music per se, beyond the scope of these comments, is left to the authors.

Not mentioned in their vignette, it is relevant to underscore that the therapist competently treated this music as if a manifest dream when she recognized that the patient had isolated the affect in the tune played at a fast (obsessional) tempo. Playing and singing the music at a slower tempo, with repetitions, is paral- leled in dream analysis when the dreamer repeats and associates to different parts of the dream at a different pace. After playing her music slowly, with the ther- apists support, the patient was able to connect with her feelings of sadness-similar to the dynamics in analytic treatment.

The authors mentioned that the patient played an original tune (on an unknown instrument) and the therapist sang the song with the patient. Thus it is unclear if the song had lyrics or they were added later, or if they merely sang the instrumental music to- gether. With such ambiguity it would be too specu- lative to make further comments on these factors. What did this music sound like? Were attempts made to trace the roots of her song to a tune or song that had been presented by the original caretaker(s), in addi- tion to the linking of early feelings?

Nevertheless, the patients lullaby is now posi- tively linked with this therapist who helped her so much. As stated elsewhere several years ago:

If the therapeutic experience has been success- ful, in the absence of the therapist, the songs will be repeated and sung [or hummed] men- tally as transitional objects, when needed. For- mal treatment may end but the songs of the transference are interminable. A song is never simply, only a song. A song in ones heart, brain and mind is a voice that communicates. (Diaz de Chumaceiro, 1987, pp. 31-32)

Now these terms have been integrated. Invariably, all lullabies are transferential transitional songs, as is also evident in an excerpt of Ostwalds (1993) ex- cellent psychobiographical study of Robert Schu- manns (1840) Ich hab im Traum Geweinet (I Was Crying in my Dream), based on Heine, from his well-known song cycle Dichterliebe (op. 48, no. 13).

Robert Schumanns Lullaby

Peter Ostwald (1993) focused on Schumanns (1825) first autobiography where at 15 years of age he

356 CORA L. DfAZ de CHUMACEIRO

had described his bond with his foster mother, Frau Ruppius, as follows: She accomplished a great deal in the education of children. I loved her. She was my second mother, and . I stayed under her maternal supervision for two and a half years (Ostwald, 1985, p. 15). (Due to his mothers illness, requiring quar- antine, he had been separated from her when he was 2 years old. Emotional distance had then followed.)

Once every day I went over to my parents, writes Schumann, but otherwise I did not con- cern myself about them any longer. He men- tions additional symptoms, related most likely to the discontinuities felt in relation to a lost maternal object: Still very clear in my mem- ory is that I couldnt sleep the night before mov- ing out of this house, and that I cried through- out the entire night. Also once before, when Frau Rippius was away on a trip, I got up alone during the night . . . and sat at the window, crying bitterly, so that early in the morning they found me, asleep, with tears rolling down my cheeks (Ostwald, 1985, pp. 15-16; emphasis added in Ostwald, 1993, p. 183)

In Ostwalds view, these memories appeared to have served as the basis for Schumanns composition of his lied I Was Crying in my Dream, when he was 30 years old. A paraphrased description of his song follows (conserving Ostwalds English transla- tion of the original German lyrics):

The lieds original key is E flat minor (marked softly). Alone (a cappella), a baritone sings in a monotonously sustained melody with only two tones (B flat and C flat), I cried and cried while dream- ing, suggesting the wailing of a crying child. Five staccato chords on the piano follow, in a slow dotted rhythm, the dominant and tonic alternate. A funeral march is suggested by the muted drumming on the piano. Silence. Alone, the singer continues: I dreamt that you lay in your grave, moving into the key of C flat and is answered by the pianos death march. An upward and downward wail of the singer follows, I woke up, and the tears were still flowing down from my cheek, with accented chords inter- rupting him. With two chords, the piece returns to E flat minor-the home key. Then a fermata (duration unspecified) (p 190).

In the second stanza, the first one is repeated, softly, again followed by the same five gloomy pia-

nissimo chords. The lonely singer then sings: I dreamt that you abandoned me, followed by the march. He continues: I woke up, with a slight crescendo, one chord follows and was still crying, and another chord followed by such long and bitter tears. Here, still in the minor key, the pianist starts playing sustained, more drawn-out chords, echoing the wailing effect of the voice, acknowledg- ing the singers tears, and leading directly into the third stanza (p. 190).

The singer and the pianist now are united, even more softly. The singer, accompanied by two key- board voices, sings: I cried and cried while dream- ing, I dreamt you were true to me still. In a more hopeful mood and a crescendo, the tonality changes to A flat minor. He sings: I woke up, and yet a flood of tears was still flowing forth. Ostwald concludes: Two sustained chords, followed by ghastly silence. Emptiness! Then, pianissimo, the piano plays five chords, the funeral march again. Another dreadful silence, punctuated by two staccato chords (p. 190). The song has ended. Ostwald insists that to truly ap- preciate the power of this music, reading about it is insufficient. The music must be heard! (p. 179).

In view of childhood traumata previous to Schu- manns songwriting and other creative activities, Ostwald speculated that this lied symbolizes, as Donald J. Marcuse puts it, a dialogue of mother and infant of the most distressing and dysfunctional kind (pp. 191-192). Nevertheless, with this com- position reflecting the pain and terror of abandon- ment, Schumann mastered two interrelated short and long-term objectives: (a) the integration of his painful separation from Clara Wieck, his fiancee. (Her father, in a rivalrous Oedipal triangulation, was impeding Schumanns contact with the passion and support of his creative work as well as threatening his reputa- tion), and (b) the desired synthesis of affects and ideas in music.

This composition was a transferential transitional song in Schumanns life. It was transitionally linked to his lost and dead mother who sang, as well as transferentially linked to his living loved Clara who he was in danger of losing. Even without knowledge of this biographical material, affectively, this lied may unconsciously serve a therapeutic function to others who include it in their repertoire of classi- cal songs to be heard or sung. If recalled in treat- ment by either patient or therapist, its significance seems evident.

TRANSFERENTIAL TRANSITIONAL MUSIC

Concluding Remarks

Austin and Dvorkins excellent work on resistance reflects their sustained energy to bridge psychoana- lytic theory and technique to music therapy-an up- stream effort. Greater attention needs to be given to the evocation of lullabies and cradle songs in all treat- ment modalities, not just in the field of music therapy.

Therapists also can have hidden lullabies in their long-term memory (see Diaz de Chumaceiro, in press). These patient-therapist transferential-coun- tertransferential transitional music, which includes tunes and songs, are reflections of the soul of the individual who comes for individual or group treat- ment or for supervision. Lullabies offer a unique op- portunity for healing and learning that may not nec- essarily be expressed in another art form, or in other subjects, in the same way-in spite of the psychoan- alytic theory of the repetition compulsion.

When patients feel that their musical evocations/ productions are misunderstood, if the resistances that are usually countertransferentially induced are not re- solved, progress will be impeded and premature flight from treatment may result; with insufficient training in psychoanalytic principles, music therapists will ig- nore the real reasons why their patients left. As ther- apists, to be able to increase our skill and compe- tence, we must continuously strive to identify resis- tances to ourselves, to patients and to music per se in treatment as well as in everyday life beyond work with family members and friends.

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