Aesthetic Experience and the Healing Process

Abstract

Music therapists are now required to have personal therapy as a part of their training. In many cases, as in mine, this is likely to be psychotherapy rather than music therapy. This paper gives an account of my own therapeutic journey which began quite a few years before I trained, but focuses on the place of music in that journey. I explore how composition and improvisation helped me to contain and process my emotional experience in a unique way.