Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2015, 60, 5, 618641

Acoustic resonance at the dawn of life:

musical fundamentals of the psychoanalytic
relationship
Judith Pickering, Sydney
Abstract: This paper uses a case vignette to show how musical elements of speech are a
crucial source of information regarding the patients emotional states and associated
memory systems that are activated at a given moment in the analytic eld. There are
specic psychoacoustic markers associated with different memory systems which
indicate whether a patient is immersed in a state of creative intersubjective relatedness
related to autobiographical memory, or has been triggered into a traumatic memory
system. When a patient feels immersed in an atmosphere of intersubjective
mutuality, dialogue features a rhythmical and tuneful form of speech featuring
improvized reciprocal imitation, theme and variation. When the patient is catapulted
into a traumatic memory system, speech becomes monotone and disjointed.
Awareness of such acoustic features of the traumatic memory system helps to alert
the analyst that such a shift has taken place informing appropriate responses and
interventions. Communicative musicality (Malloch & Trevarthen 2009) originates in
the earliest non-verbal vocal communication between infant and care-giver, states of
primary intersubjectivity. Such musicality continues to be the primary vehicle for
transmitting emotional meaning and for integrating right and left hemispheres. This
enables communication that expresses emotional signicance, personal value as well
as conceptual reasoning.
Keywords: communicative musicality, vocal attunement, traumatic memory system,
primary intersubjectivity, psychoacoustic, analytic eld, narratives of self

Anna
Anna sits on the edge of her chair, peering up at me under a tussle of unruly
curls, a shy half-smile on her lips. In a soft, lilting voice, she hesitantly
begins relating a precious memory of playing the harp as a child, her voice
becoming more animated as she continues, all the while scanning my face to
ensure she has my undivided attention. Intuitively I nd myself vocalizing
an encouraging series of mmms, which match the intonation of her
narration. If I do not murmur such non-verbal assurance that I am on her
wavelength, she immediately subsides into a lifeless monotone, muttering
under her breath, Whats the point? No one ever gets it. Waste of time. A
0021-8774/2015/605/618

2015, The Society of Analytical Psychology

Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
DOI: 10.1111/1468-5922.12176

Acoustic resonance at the dawn of life

619

failure to respond to eeting expression of joy in a concordant and timely

manner unwittingly triggers Anna back into the familiar yet morbid territory
of a traumatic memory system, deriving from early experience of being with
a depressed and hence unresponsive mother.

Introduction
Being with patients such as Anna reveals the ways in which paralinguistic vocal
elements of the analytic conversation transmit vital information concerning the
inner world of the patient. Such acoustic fundamentals underlie myriad forms
of unconscious and conscious communication between patient and analyst.
Music is the language of the emotions and musical elements of speech are the
means by which emotional meaning is conveyed. As Jung wrote, music
expresses ... the movement of the feelings (or emotional values) that cling to
the unconscious processes ... music represents the movement, development,
and transformations of the motifs of the collective unconscious (Jung 1973,
p. 542). Brandt observes there is unequivocal evidence that there is a
fundamental, stable and primordial connection between music and the
expression of emotional states (Brandt 2009, p. 33). Yet while we may be
implicitly informed by this connection, it has been little explored in analytic
literature. Jung rarely mentions music while Freud could not bear the implicit
power of music to move him, without knowing why I am thus affected and
what it is that affects me (Freud 1914, p. 211).
This paper uses a clinical vignette to make known why we are thus affected
by musical elements of the analytic dialogue and what it is that affects. I will be
showing how communicative musicality, originating in the mother-infant
relationship from the dawn of life, gives rise to a sense of interpersonal
connection, shared states of mind, a sense of being with the other and
knowing the other knows you. Patients deprived of such primary
intersubjectivity due to relational trauma in the early environment intuitively
seek this experience in analysis. Of relevance here are such concepts as
implicit relational knowing, moments of meeting, dyadic expansion of
consciousness as developed by members of the Boston Change Process
Study Group (BCPSG) such as Tronick (2001), Stern (1985, 2010), and
Lyons-Ruth (1998). I draw on infant research in the area of communicative
musicality and primary intersubjectivity undertaken by Malloch and
Trevarthen (2009), Nagy and Molnar (1994), Panskepp & Trevarthen
(2009) and Powers & Trevarthen (2009), as well as Mearess (1995, 1998,
2000, 2012) work in the area of forms of language, memory systems and
the self.
In the spirit in which Jung said the therapist must begin afresh with each
case (Jung 1946, para. 173), the case of Anna has led me to theorize afresh
the importance of acoustic fundamentals of the analytic relationship in

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communicating emotional states and co-creating shared realms of

intersubjective experience in the analytic eld.
Alongside other channels of communication such as facial mirroring, bodily
gestures and linguistic features of verbal utterances, musical elements of
language include: pitch, intonation, tone-set, mode, melodic contour,
resonance, tessitura, tone of voice, rhythm, pulse (regular, irregular), meter,
tempo (fast, slow, accelerating, slowing down), phrasing, emphasis, accent
(staccato, legato), dynamics, timing, pauses, turn-taking and vocal quality
(timbre). Timbre, also known as spectral complexity, plays a major role in
the expression and perception of emotion in speech .... Importantly, with
pitch and loudness, the timbre of the voice signals the intensity of expressed
emotions (Powers & Trevarthen 2009, p. 215). Simply put, it is not so much
what is said but how it is said.
I have discovered that there are specic acoustic features indicating
whether a patient is engaged with the analyst in a state of dyadic creative
relatedness or shocked back into a traumatic memory system. The
unconscious traumatic memory system is a collection of memories
concerning similar traumatic events, which is stored in a memory system
beyond the reach of reective awareness which is triggered by
contextual cues (Meares 2000, p. 53).
When patient and analyst inhabit a harmonious intersubjective space,
narration will tend to be more melodious. Vivacious, sing-song expression
features the three-note tone-set1 universally used in young childrens made-up
songs (such as Im the King of the Castle), conveying a sense of joy, as does a

The three notes la-so-mi are a subset of the pentatonic scale (ve toned)

The pentatonic scale has been found by ethnomusicologists to be universally favoured in baby
and toddler babble, nursery songs and childrens traditional folk music, such as Im the King of
the Castle. It is acoustically easier to sing in tune and related to early pre-verbal vocal
communication of young babies.

Acoustic resonance at the dawn of life

621

higher pitch located in the middle of a persons vocal range. Enunciation will be
acoustically purer and resonant, free-owing, supported with deep, even,
natural breathing. A stream of consciousness expressing the patients inner
life features a regular moderato ambulatory rhythm, like a river coursing its
way, becoming faster when hitting rapids of emotional excitement and slower
when more reective, hesitant or sad.
When, however, a patient is catapulted by internal or external discordant cues into
an unconscious traumatic memory system, the form of language shows distinct
changes. It becomes repetitive, dominated by negative affect, linear, outer-directed
with little reective function or metaphoric usage (Meares 2012b, p. 32 & p. 39).
Vocal expression shows characteristic changes: the voice may drop in pitch and a
lifeless monotone replaces tunefulness. The tone of voice may become shrill or
harsh, fragmented, raspy, constricted, leading to increased acoustic interference
and dissonant noise in subliminally audible overtones. Enunciation may become
markedly slower, softer, trailing away, mumbled, under the breath and constricted.
Different traumatic states of consciousness such as dissociation, depression,
anxiety, aggression, have specic acoustic markers. Depression, for example,
is characterized by reduced pitch range and downward pitch contours as well
as slower tempo. More active emotions such as anger may be portrayed with
louder dynamics, higher pitch, faster tempo and rhythm (Marwick & Murray
2009, p. 282). Passive emotions such as sadness, despair, or disappointment
are depicted with softer dynamics, slower rhythm, lower absolute pitch and
monotony. Anxiety tends to be communicated with shallow breathing, high
pitch, rapid rhythm, signalling urgency.
Knowledge of all such paralinguistic vocal cues enables the analyst to intuit
the patients psychological state and helps shape appropriate responses. So,
rather than replicate a growling monotone of a traumatic script, an attuned
analyst will use calmer more soothing vocalizations, providing a sense of
security. Rather than imitate the fast tempo and rapid shallow breathing of an
anxious patient, the analyst models emotional regulation through breathing
that is calm, slow and deep, and quiet gentle vocalizations falling to the
patients tonic. Here the analyst is intuitively using cross-modal
communication, representing in a non-verbal vocal glissando or slide, a
mother stroking her baby. When a mother strokes a crying baby, she tends to
accompany her soothing strokes down the babys body with a vocal
equivalent, there, there, there with descending pitch. Babies learn to
associate such a verbal melodic contour of a descending inection, there,
there, there with a physical sensation of being stroked rhythmically but
gently down the body. The vocalization itself becomes soothing

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Judith Pickering

Thus an analyst is able to sooth a distressed patient with nonverbal

vocalizations rather than physical touch. Infants have an innate capacity for
such cross-modal uency, taking information conveyed in one sensory
modality and translating it into another (Stern 1985, p. 5).
The role of musicality in speech derives from the earliest interactions between
mother and baby, such pre-verbal forms of reciprocal vocal communication
continuing to form a vital element of intersubjective mutuality. Our patients
do more than express their inner world, they invite the analyst to jointly coconstruct moments of meeting (Stern 1985), dyadic intersubjective states of
shared consciousness (Tronick 1998) in which states of consciousness are
expanded, because they have incorporated elements of the state of
consciousness of the other into their own state. There is some form of
recognition that patient and analyst know each others mind (Tronick
2001, p. 193). Communicative musicality is a primary means to do so. Patientanalyst conversation utilizes reciprocal imitation, improvization, dynamic
amplication, musical question-answer sequences, theme and variation in the
service of co-creating musical exchanges expressing common participation in a
shared world.
Patients deprived of early primary intersubjectivity may be particularly in
need of restorative attention to acoustic musical attunement. This was the
case with Anna.

Anna
If I hadnt heard the creak of the gate, Anna may have been left waiting on my
doorstep because her knock was so soft and tentative. I opened the door to a
petite, young woman dressed in a crumpled baggy dress underneath a huge
grey shawl, wrapped tightly around her. I ushered her into the consulting
room. She eyed the couch suspiciously and sat bolt upright on the edge of
the seat, looking down at her clasped hands, nervously stroking her left
hand with her right index nger. I resisted the urge to soothe her with my
voice: there, there, there in time with her strokes.
She launched into a spiel about why she bothered to make the appointment at
all. My G.P. sent me. He says Im depressed and its time I dealt with some
family stuff. So he says, but I dunno, whats the f-ing point anyway? Bit
funny talking to a total stranger. Oh well, not much difference than
speaking to the blank wall at me at. Oh, in case youre interested, I live
alone. Just me and the cat. Like to meet someone, but whod have me?
Plain Jane, thats my second name. Im Anna by the way.
Oh and Im supposed to tell you about my family. All migrated to Oz from
Ireland when I was three. Only my fathers not Irish. Hes Polish. Im the
youngest. Two older sisters. They had it lucky: both pretty and blonde,
both happily married. Im the dark solemn one. Sometimes think I was a

Acoustic resonance at the dawn of life

623

changeling. Oh and there was a baby boy who died, little Johnny boy. I never
met him, cot death. Apparently thats why I am so stuffed up. Mum wanted a
boy. They all said when he died, you know the sort of thing, never mind,
youll have another one, only that was me. Girl, worse luck. So she was
full of woe forever, amen. Well thats about it in a nutshell.
Although Annas voice was expressive, with a strong, almost affected strine2
accent, it was also cynical, as if bored by her own story and expecting me to
be similarly disinterested. I wondered if this manner of talking was a defence
against shame: the shame of neglect, abandonment, disappointment, as well
as a defence against a suffused longing for connectedness. Over the next
few sessions she continued relaying a family-of-origin chronicle in a rapid,
sardonic tone.

The father spiel

Well today you get the father spiel. After Johnny-boy died, the family
migrated down-under to Golden Oz: land of opportunity and sunny skies,
the great fresh start, only no one told us no work for wogs. So while Mum
was comatose with grief about little Johnno, golden boy, Dad went away
for weeks at a time looking for work outback. Mum just rued the old
country and all her family left behind.
As for Dads family, wasnt told much, but apparently all his family died in the
war. Him being Polish, he never tted in in Ireland. Didnt t in here either.
And even though Is born here, I sure as hell didnt t in. In that part of
Sydney youre either blonde or your parents have the sense to do bottle
blonde and mine didnt. Hated going to Kindy: other kids didnt just call
me a Wog but a cry-baby-wog. Didnt want to leave Mum alone at home.
If shed a had half a chance shed a been on the next boat home to the
motherland; never sure Id not nd her gone.
We kept moving every time Dad went loopy. Shell shock they said; would
have thought it a bit late for that 20 years later. What is shell shock anyway?
Annas account of her origins continued unabated, leaving not the slightest
pause for any response. She directed it at the blank wall above me, avoiding
eye contact. There was a jarring discord between her cynical tone and the
elegiac content of her story. As she went on in the same vein, I began to feel
as insignicant as the monochrome paint on my wall. I found myself pinching
myself to stay awake. I could hardly draw breath, lest the movement of my
diaphragm startle her and stop her in her tracks; a darting look of affronted
dismay and the colour would rise from her neck, accompanied by a lapse into
silent hand wringing. I found myself modifying my breathing, keeping my
2

Strine refers to a broad accent of Australian English.

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Judith Pickering

torso as still as I could to avoid startling her, at the same time breathing
slowly and deeply seeking to indicate calm receptive presence even while
listening in silence.

Wednesdays child
An old childrens rhyme oated into consciousness. I found myself
silently reciting it to bring myself to life out of this stupor,
repeating it faster and faster, adding an improvized tune to it, while
outwardly remaining immobilized as if carved in cement:
Mondays child is fair of face,
Tuesdays child is full of grace,
Wednesdays child is full of woe,
Thursdays child has far to go
I couldnt help thinking, Well, you sure as eggs are not Sundays child bonny, blithe,
good and gay!
Wednesdays Child!
A voice erupted from me, and I was aghast to realize I had inadvertently spoken aloud.
Anna just looked at me quizzically and asked,
Howd you know?
And started making fun of herself, chanting a little made-up song, which was tunefully
alive albeit self-derogatory,
Woe, woe, woe, is me!
Hee hee, cant you see!

My sister used to say, get that bloody chip off your shoulder before you become a
frigging hunchback!
I just retort: Get off my back then! Cant help being a chip off the old block! Funny
isnt it?
Suddenly we both looked at each other and a tinkling infectious laugh emanated from
Anna, inviting me to join in. She began chanting the old rhyme using the universal tone
set of childrens made up songs:
Mondays child is fair of face,
Tuesdays child is full of grace,
Wednesdays child is full of woe,
Thursdays child has far to go

Acoustic resonance at the dawn of life

625

Despite the protestations of my analytic superego: what will they think in

peer supervision, all I could do was join in with her chant, as tears of
laughter trickled down our faces. A rare moment of vitality and mutual
enjoyment entered the room.

Nameless dread
If music is the space between notes, as Debussy claimed, so in therapy the
empty spaces between what is spoken resound their own tune. Silence is
often experienced as uncomfortable, if not persecutory. At times Anna
felt propelled into a state of nothingness, which she called her hellrealm. I would open the door to a mask of frozen horror. She did not
meet my gaze but silently entered the room, sat scrunched over, her
pinched, white face staring vacantly into space. The sense of deadly
despair felt palpable.
The early atmosphere into which Anna was born was lled with a sense of
foreboding and lack of emotional containment. Anna was haunted by images
of her mothers grief-struck, locked-in face. When describing this, her voice
trailed away into little more than a whisper, as if replicating the atmosphere
of nameless dread in her description. Listening, I found myself fading into this
realm of absence and blankness.
We sat in silence.
Eventually I roused myself from this trance and broke the silence, simply
whispering Ooooh, my voice trailing down a fth.
I longed to reassure her things would get better, that I was with her, silently
present rather than silently absent, like her mother. But Anna seemed
unreachable. A void opened up between us. On her side she plummeted into
a black hole, which felt evil because the isolation felt so absolute. On my
side there was a longing to enter her psychological hell and offer some
gesture of hope, but any attempt seemed only to exacerbate her sense of
alienation. All I could do was vicariously enter this unspeakable and

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Judith Pickering

unbearable zone. One day I could bear it no longer. Most un-analytically, I

broke the silence, saying, Id go where angels fear to tread, and be with
you in your hell-realm. She looked up momentarily, with a penetrating
indictment, I am not in the hell realms. I am the hell-realms. I am
dreadfulness incarnate
We sat for what felt like an agonizing eternity, listening to the deafening
silence of the void. Yet Anna sensed my immersion with her in this state of
dreadfulness incarnate. Her hell realm originated in questioning her mother
when she was four, what happens when I die? Will you be with me? Her
mother didnt even register the import of the question, let alone offer comfort.
Abandoned into carelessness, Anna plummeted into an unendurable state of
no-thing-ness and no-one-there-ness, an evil eternity. The implication of my
declaration that I would enter this realm was that it would no longer be evil.
Eternity, for Anna, was only evil if it meant total isolation. Yet my capacity to
bear the unbearable with her was part of such being with feeling her sense
of utter alienation in the marrow of my bones was a precursor for any spark
of genuine incipient aliveness.

Inklings of aliveness, gestures of the true self

Anna began to relate other chapters of her life, but her tone of voice was no
longer quite so disdainful. It was softer, more reective, with a gentle, if sad,
Dorian modal lilt, a musical mode associated with the Celtic folk music of her
origins.
I wondered whether a growing condence that I would not be dismissive like
her mother meant she no longer had to pre-emptively dismiss herself and
therefore could express her history in a more tonally congruent way. Painfully
shy, and hating school, Anna conded how she shunned social interaction.
Her one solace was playing an old Irish harp and composing, which she
did in solitude for hours. Yet no family member encouraged her, I cant
believe, that despite singing day after day, year after year, no one ever even
made so much as a comment. This lack of recognition contributed to
feeling unvalued, unheard and un-alive, merely going through the motions
of life. I wondered about her experience as a baby, babbling away to an
emotionally absent mother and the devastating impact this would have on
her sense of self.
In early sessions Anna would sit on the edge of the couch, as if about to take
off. Gradually she began to trust me enough to conde more about her secret
pleasure in playing the harp, and she would wriggle back into the cushions of
the couch. There would be a glimmer of joy in her eyes, peeping through the
black curls of her fringe. Her narration took on a tuneful contour and my
mmms acoustically replicated the tail end of her narration

Acoustic resonance at the dawn of life

627

Any failure on my part to synchronize non-verbal vocal responses elicited an

inevitable slide into the deadly silent realm of the early familial environment,
signalled by her repetitious refrain:
Whats the point? No one ever listens. They dont get it. You dont get it.

There was no musicality to this traumatic script. It was at, disjointed, lowpitched and harsh. Her mother did not listen. Her family did not understand
her. Nor did I. No one did. So what was the point of trying yet again?

On being understood
Underneath her various disguises the shawl covering her body, hair covering
her face, and a dismissive, sardonic tone, Anna longed to feel seen, heard and
acknowledged. This entailed staying with Anna with every bre of my being.
She bathed in my attention, my gaze encompassing the whole intersubjective
potential space between and surrounding us. Anna needed me to be
exquisitely ne-tuned to the tonal contours, timbre and rhythm of her speech,
providing mother-infant resonance that her own depressed mother had failed
to give. If I hesitated too long, or amplied too much, or at this stage did
more than give a melodic answer to her implied question, merely replicating
the tail end of the last sentence with a falling cadence,3 a sudden monotone
trailing into inaudibility heralded disappearance back into her trauma zone.
At times there was little room for any response at all. Words fell like stones
from her lips, not like eggs generating symbolizing function. Monologue
replaced any form of proto-conversation, let alone conversation.
3

A cadence is the musical equivalent of a full stop or comma, marking the end of a phrase or
section, typically falling from a fth above (the dominant) to the tonic.

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Judith Pickering

Stuck between the rock of deadly silence and too much verbal interaction, the
simplest mmm sliding down a fth to her tonic enabled us to negotiate the
narrow passage back to relational space.
Gradually communication became more bi-directional and relational, with
less pressure for me to mimic her intonation exactly. An improvizatory
quality replaced the need for precise echolaic repetition, paralleling an
increasing capacity to use language more creatively. Annas presentation of a
given theme met with a responding variation of the given theme: a representation.
As trust in my empathic attunement increased, so her language was
increasingly analogical, gurative, associative, whimsical, like someone
musing aloud, the realm of symbolic play. Tentative steps in a dance of
intimacy began, inviting me to join in a co-created duet expressing something
intangible, fragile but vitally alive, above and beyond what either could have
created on our own, a third thing between us, the birth of selfhood.

Acoustic resonance at the dawn of life

Winnicott said, When I look I am seen, so I exist (1971, p. 134). I would add,
when I hear that I am heard, I know that I am truly here. A baby feels
relationally alive because it is held in the loving mind of an Other. This
intersubjective environment is embodied, tactile, visual and auditory. The
baby bathes in mothers attention, voice to voice, eye to eye, body to body,
being to being.
Anna was not able to suckle at a breast resonating with mothers loving and
reassuring murmuring. Alongside the mothers encircling arms, her shining
eyes, and the mutual concentration of her attention which becomes the core
of the self (Tustin 1986, p. 29), the vibration of mothers voice is felt as baby
drinks in her milk, just as it was heard vibrating through the amniotic uid.
The foetus detects sounds through the amniotic uid from around 22 weeks
and can discriminate the sound of its mothers voice from birth (Powers &
Trevarthen 2009, p. 214). It is through her voice that the mother coaxes her
baby into the world (Panksepp & Trevarthen 2009, p. 110).
Imagine the emergence of your baby from your womb. You coax your little
one into the world with your voice. The baby takes its rst breath, cries, and
is placed on your chest. Heartbeat synchronizes with heartbeat, as the infant
feels the rise and fall of your breath, your voice reverberating through the
chest cavity, just as once it was transmitted and heard through the vibrations
in the amniotic uid. There is a vibrational continuity from being in the
womb to being placed upon it: the marsupial pouch of your embodied living,
breathing, empathic attunement and skin-to-skin contact. The baby so
soothed is then put to the breast: mouth to nipple, drinking in your milk, all

Acoustic resonance at the dawn of life

629

the while stroked and soothed with voice and arms. Babys mouth falls off the
nipple and she gazes up at you, a lopsided smile on her lips.
Newborns distinguish timing patterns, pitch, loudness, harmonic interval and
voice quality (Trehub et al. 1993). Motor and affective mimicry are active from
birth, the mother resonating with the infants emotional state and responding on
a motor, autonomic and somatic level (Knox 2013, p. 493). This interaction is a
form of implicit relational knowing as explored by the BCPSG, procedural
knowledge of relationships which integrates affect, cognition and interactive
dimensions, occurring through interactional, intersubjective processes that alter
the relational eld within a shared implicit relationship (Stern et al. 1998).
Imitating each others facial expressions, gestures and vocalizations, mother and
child engage in mutual negotiation of emotion, experience and meaning. The
intricate reciprocal nature of such imitative interaction informs Trevarthens
theory of innate intersubjectivity, a psychology of mutually sensitive minds preexistent from the dawn of life (Trevarthen 1998, p. 1).
Although researchers following on from Vygotskys (1962) zone of proximal
development argue that mothers vocal interaction is usually at a level just
higher than that of the baby, it is also just as much about mother learning her
babys affective vocal language: the unique character and intentionality
communicated through babys mewlings, coos, gurgles, murmurs, humming,
lip and tongue protrusions, ute-like joyful cries, and disgruntled, fretful
cries. When mother imitates and amplies babys vocalizations, she also nds
to her delight that the baby imitates and amplies her communications,
leading to a vocal improvization of theme and variation. Such reciprocal
improvization contains the common components of both dramatic and
musical structure: introduction (theme), development, climax, and resolution.
By two months, the interactions between mother and baby mesh and there is
a reciprocal back and forth vocal exchange, which Bateson (1979) calls the
proto-conversation. This is related to proto-symbolizing, so crucial for the
development of symbolic play and symbolic function. Long before
experiential meaning becomes abstracted, musicality conveys a lively,
embodied, creatively expressive experience embedded in intersubjective
encounters between baby and caregiver.
Mothers intuitively adopt a sing-song musical form of speech and enunciate
particularly clearly; this is known as infant-directed speech. Infant-directed
speech utilizes extended melodic intonation of vowels which match the vocal
register of the child (usually between A=440 and D a 5th below): thus the
mother is literally on their childs wavelength. Timing and rhythmic
coordination are also critical. Human infants and adults alike orient
themselves towards rhythmically coordinated interpersonal interactions based
on pulse and turn-taking. Mother and child use melodic intonation, lyricalaffective expression, gestural forms, pulse, dynamic forms of vitality (Stern
2010), anticipation, resolution, turn-taking, to form pre-verbal narratives of
shared emotional experience.

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Judith Pickering

Echoes of such musicality resound in the analytic dialogue when patients

inhabit an emotional realm of aliveness and vitality, deriving from primary
intersubjectivity. For Trevarthen, primary intersubjectivity gives rise to a
theory of how human minds, in human bodies, recognize one anothers
impulses, intuitively, with or without cognitive or symbolic elaborations
(1998, p. 1, p. 35). It is a delicate and immediate with-the-other awareness
(Trevarthen 1993, p. 122). Primary intersubjectivity is also related to dyadic
expansion of consciousness (Tronick 1998). Through shared vocal
interaction, states of consciousness of both patient and analyst are expanded,
incorporating elements of the state of consciousness of each other into their
own state. Vocal and embodied expressions of primary intersubjectivity show
marked musical structure of theme. The mother does not simply imitate the
baby or vice versa. As in music, the imitation features dynamic amplication
and a variation in the response, something new is added. The baby says ee
oo ah and the mother responds eeee ooooo aah! and this is reciprocated
back and forth

Such communication is also cross-modal: knee-bouncing rhymes in time with

the beat; a waving hand gesture represented vocally with a swoop of the voice;
baby lifted high in the air with an ascending scale wheeee; or falling down in
time with the cadence to, Ring a ring a rosy ... we all fall down

Similarly, when a patient speaks, he or she is presenting a theme. The analyst

imitates, amplies and represents the theme with slight variation while
remaining nely linked, or coupled, to the patients experience, showing a
high degree of connectedness between them. Such symbolic play enhances a
sense of mutuality, thematic iterations and reiterative variations bringing

Acoustic resonance at the dawn of life

631

forth a state of pleasure that neither partner could have produced alone
(Meares 2012b, p. 20).
A response that is discordant, off-key, ill-timed, out of step or has too much
variation will be dissonant and disjunctive, as will be amplication of
negative affect. The lack of attunement, unresponsiveness and affective
discordance towards their babies of depressed mothers leads to a range of
psychological and interpersonal difculties in their childrens development,
including emotional dysregulation, reduced capacity for reciprocal
coordinated interaction, lack of connectivity with others, fragmentation,
attention decits, insecure attachment, depression (Marwick & Murray,
2009) and disorders of self. The most common trigger for the activation of a
traumatic memory system is lack of attunement, for the original trauma
featured just such failure.

Acoustic resonance: the overtone series

Vocal attunement, so vital for the mother-infant dyad, is also essential in an
intersubjective therapeutic relationship. Attuned analysts will feel their bodies
resonating with the acoustic overtone series of the patients utterances, vocal
chords subliminally vibrating in parasympathetic harmony. The overtone
series is a series of tones decreasing in audibility that are sounded above the
fundamental tone. For example, if a patients utterance centres on the tone of
middle C, a specic series of overtones with a set pattern of ratios
harmonizing with the fundamental frequency will resound: a tone an octave
higher (1/2) followed by a perfect fth (2/3), followed by a perfect fourth (3/
4), followed by a major third (4/5) and so forth. The following diagram
depicts the overtone series

Although such overtones are increasingly imperceptible, the higher they are
above the fundamental frequency, they form the basis of musical consonance
and are subliminally felt in the body. We intuitively tune to anothers
fundamental tone. When we attune to one another we tune to each others
tonal centre and associated overtones. If one persons inner being resounds
with a fundamental tone and a sensitive other resonates with this tonality,

632

Judith Pickering

interpersonal harmony is created, enhancing a sense of fellow feeling (Hobson

1985, p. 135), well-being and value. Such intersubjective harmonization forms
a conduit to express our deepest emotional states of being, creativity and
imagination. We feel a sense of communion while enjoying the uniqueness of
each voice in this duet of selving.
Being acoustically in tune avoids dissonant overtones, which create
disturbances in the sympathetic as well as autonomic nervous system.
Emotional disharmony is expressed through acoustic disharmony: the
dissonant overtones created by a voice that yells, rasps, barks, growls, or
explodes in anger.

Right and left hemispheres, language and musicality

Prosodic musical elements of speech tend to be more associated with the right
hemisphere, whereas propositional speech ows towards the left hemisphere
(Panskepp & Trevarthen 2009, p. 131). Right-hemispheric language tends to be
analogical, relational, nonlinear, non-grammatical, associative, intimate, a
language of immediacy, of the present moment (Meares 2012b, p. 175). It is
generated out of early mother-infant proto-conversation, gradually developing into
the language of symbolic play and internalized as inner speech. It communicates
emotional meaning through musical elements as well as facial expression, gestures
and so forth. It gives rise to narratives of self (Meares 1995) those essential
stories which encapsulate our most sacred sense of core values and selfhood.
There is a parallel between communicative musicality and analogical
relatedness characteristic of right-hemispheric language. Melodic contour is
processed in the right-hemisphere, which contains a contour analyser that in
effect draws an outline of a melody and analyses it for later recognition
(Levitin 2007, cited in Meares 2012a, p. 94). This shaping function is shared
by both analogy and musicality and is a characteristic of inner speech and of
the right-hemisphere (Meares 2012a, p. 94). By contrast left-hemispheric
social speech is logical, propositional, linear, grammatical, and syntactical.
Musical dimensions of language are a means to integrate right and left
hemispheres and synthesize both forms of language, enabling communication
that is multi-layered, multimodal, intersubjective and creative. Such
paralinguistic musical fundamentals of language are a subliminal, yet integral,
parallel track underlying such communication. As Panskepp and Trevarthen write:
music is the language of emotions, and its effective power arises from subcortical
emotional systems .... A protomusical competence, coupling manual gestures with
vocal gestures in narration leading to protolanguage (Halliday 1997) precedes
language in development of the human mind .... Communication by musical vocal
gestures and vocal and manual language capacities remain tightly coupled and they
engage overlapping processes in the brain.
Panksepp & Trevarthen 2009, p. 132

Acoustic resonance at the dawn of life

633

Psychoacoustic aspects of the analytic encounter

When Anna was in a state akin to the child engaged in symbolic play, musing
aloud, creating narratives of self (Meares 1998), I mostly resounded with
non-verbal vocalese. A quizzical glissando slide rising over a span of a fth
encouraged her to continue, while a gently afrmative cadential mmm
validated her joy in composing. It was vital not to interrupt the stream of
consciousness unless invited, which Anna indicated by a rising terminal
followed by a pause. She would shyly glance up to check that I was fully
immersed in her story and on her wavelength. A simple mmm falling back to
her tonic was enough to conrm that indeed I was with her.
Pauses are part of turn-taking yet the preceding tonal cadence indicates whether
the narrator is merely pausing for breath (indicated by a rising inection) or has
nished, allowing the other to respond (indicated by a cadence back to their
tonic). A patient may speak without pausing to insure that they are not
interrupted in their narration. The following diagram shows a rising terminal
signalling opening followed by a closing terminal (cadence) back to the tonic

Conversational equivalents of musical question/answer form are to be

distinguished from the interrogatory form of questioning which may intrude upon
the sense of intersubjective co-immersion in the patients inner world. A minute
version of musical question/answer form occurs in therapy when the melodic
contour of the patients narration features a rising terminal to the dominant fth
above their tonic, followed by a pause. This signals the patient seeks reassurance
that the analyst is paying close attention and understands. The analyst gives such
reassurance by using the same tone set as the patient, but where the patient
paused on their dominant 5th, the analyst closes to the patients tonic. A mmm
that is in a different key from the patient or is not timed accurately to their pause
may trigger traumatic memories of the absent-minded mother who merely tries to
placate her child with an inattentive, off-key, off-putting mmm.
At the slightest indication I was not attuned or failed to respond in a timely
manner, Anna would trail off, descending to an undertone at the bottom of
her register, I might as well have lived in a f-ing house for the deaf; no one
registered a note I sang. Rather than imitate and hence amplify her staccato
growl, I intoned a falling glissando (slide), expressing sympathy, Oh, oh, oh
and said, Longing to be encouraged and valued

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Judith Pickering

Anna needed me to both acknowledge her pain and show a way out
of the labyrinth of trauma into the playroom of emotional growth.
From the safety of the playroom Anna also needed to venture into
the world outside the playroom. This inevitably involved confronting
and integrating the intergenerational shadow of war trauma inherited
from her father.

Annas dream
A year into therapy, Anna came in with the following dream, which she
communicated in a owing, melodic narration.
Are all dreams fraught with meaning? I mean this dream was really fraught with
meaning! We were having a session, working over a table on a Sunday afternoon.
There seemed a lot of distraction: loud noise, people coming and going. A woman
with a child on her hip came into the room and sat on the couch singing a little
made-up song and the baby was cooing in response. I felt really jealous and
hated them for intruding on my session. I wanted you all to myself. Then she
started to breast feed the baby, singing and rocking the little one. The session
started to wind down, so you put some music on, you said for relaxation. It
was heavy metal! It seemed a very odd choice but strangely I liked it. It was
very rhythmical. Rather than relaxing, I felt like dancing so I got up and
danced. And I took your hands and you joined in dancing with me! It was
really cool!
Then it was time to go so I left. My mother was outside waiting for me. I told her
about how excited I was to dance, but she just ignored me. As deated as a balloon,
I turned on my heel and stormed off. Frigging frigid freak-o, far out! Fuck-a-duck,
who she think she is? Lady muck fuck-a-duck
Anna mused on the dream and how:
It was so odd too that you played heavy metal. Youd have thought it might have been
Celtic folk music given my taste. Or some relaxing new-age stuff. But funnily enough I
found it refreshing, like somehow it shocked me out of a bubble.

The symbolism of heavy metal rock music signalled a need to be shocked out
of the bubble of harmonious maternal attunement into the realm of aggression,
machismo, masculinity and the paternal. The shadow of searching for perfect
harmony is denial of aggression, conict, separateness, as well as avoidance of
fruitful engagement in negative transferences and countertransferences. To my
mind, heavy metal signalled an important developmental shift: Anna was
ready to leave the maternal cocoon and assert her independence and
difference. She also felt able to express her furious jealousy of the mother and
baby who intruded on her session, wanting the father-me all to herself. I
wondered too about the association of different forms of heavy metal doom

Acoustic resonance at the dawn of life

635

metal, thrash metal, Viking metal, black metal and her fathers war trauma: the
hard metallic instruments of war-fare. Yet there was also an erotic rhythmic
excitement of engaging with me in improvized dancing to heavy metal.

Rebirth
The intersubjective analytic space eventually became a womb in which
Anna could be reborn. Re-sounding the harmonic overtones of the
analytic duet, this resonating chamber created a unique song of Annas
personhood. The analytic couple, like mother and baby, could thereby
partake in the sublime, and even of the mystical ... a physically based
psychic experience (Tustin 1986, p. 29). Such empathic communion,
expressed through communicative musicality, is the earliest form of
communication which fosters the growth of the psyche (ibid., p. 29), and is
also the basis for restoration, healing and new growth in the analytic
relational space.
Over the course of our work together Anna shifted between four self-states,
which could be described as follows:
1. A self-derogatory, sarcastic tone such as in her rst session. Her veiled
contempt was as much directed against me as herself, blocking out
fears of non-concordant, patronizing forms of sympathy, if not
disinterest. Yet her narration was highly animated, if hostile, featuring
a combination of soft Irish and strident strine accent. The
contemptuous tone seemed to serve to defend against:
2. The blanked out, half-alive, non-relational state of existential isolation,
an evil eternity, expressed through low-pitched, disjointed, almost
inaudibly mumbled monotone, indicating return to an unconscious
traumatic memory system, a state of non-being, if not a black hole in
the psyche (Grotstein 1990).
3. Inklings of the emergence of her true self featured an undulating
pentatonic tonality, harp-like pure-toned timbre. She was exquisitely
sensitive to my tonal attunement, initially simple imitative vocalese,
then proto-conversation featuring creation of narrative-melodic themes
with responsive variations on my part, such variations staying with her
given theme in content, key and contour. Such themes became
progressively narrative in content, gurative and even poetic:
expressed with lilting Irish (Dorian) modality, expressing the
aloneness-togetherness (Hobson 1985) of symbolic play. The analytic
conversation shifted subtly from monody to polyphony, from dyadic
to genuinely triadic relational space.
4. From triadic space, Anna began to assert her independence, alterity,
sexuality and creativity symbolized in her dream by heavy metal rock

636

Judith Pickering

music. Interaction is not always harmonious and consonant but can also
be dissonant, excited, loud, rhythmic and aggressive. We also needed to
acknowledge intergenerational transmission of trauma inherited from
her father.

Conclusion
In evolutionary terms we now know that animals express emotional states with
far ner tuning than we ever thought possible, through the musical qualities of
their songs, cries, growls, purrs (Panksepp & Trevarthen 2009, p. 132). They
express relational as well as physical motivation: cries for emotional
responsiveness, not just food.
So too, when babies emerge from the womb, long before the development of
propositional speech, they partake in forms of emotional relatedness with their
parents. Pre-verbal vocal communication enhances later immersion in a cocreated reverberating chamber: echoing, amplifying, resonating, attuning, as
well as being discordant, out of step and dissonant. The emotionally
expressive power of musicality within language continues to function as an
essential element of story-telling and self-unfolding:
Music is, from the beginning of a childs development, the polyrhythmic sound of the
human body in adventurous and creative self-possessed activity that loves to
communicate what it imagines As development proceeds, emotions come to
express moments of wonder, longing, joy, rage, pride, fear or gentle affection ...
woven into complexes of rhythm and melody that may become unforgettable and
precious memories in the art of an historical culture, inseparable from rituals ... that
rule the way humans come to move and feel together.
(Panksepp & Trevarthen 2009, p. 106).

Language emerges embedded in musicality. It needs musicality structurally in

order to be symbolic ... that is, language needs musicality to be able to
intentionally refer to something above and beyond the immediacy of facts
being communicated (Brandt 2009, p. 33).
The musical fundamentals of vocal expression continue to be a channel of
communication in their own right, transmitting invaluable emotional realities.
They form a parallel right-hemispheric track beneath more abstract lefthemispheric understanding conveyed through the verbal content of
communication.
With the development of conceptual language, we tend to divide these two
tracks rather than be harmonically enriched by their coterminous existence.
We may favour the intellectual content of discourse at the expense of
paralinguistic musical expression, which uses intonation, lilt, pitch, timbre,
rhythm, vitality effects and so forth. Yet musicality is, par excellence, the most
effective vocal way to express affective states. If we disregard this channel of

637

Acoustic resonance at the dawn of life

communication, we hear but half the message and tune out half the person. It
would be like taking a Bach cantata and only reading the words.
TRANSLATIONS

OF

ABSTRACT

Cet article sappuie sur une vignette clinique qui met en vidence que les lments
musicaux du discours sont une source essentielle dinformation concernant les tats
motionnels du patient et les systmes de mmoire associative qui peuvent parfois tre
activs dans le champ analytique. Il existe des marqueurs psycho-acoustiques
spciques associs aux diffrents systmes de mmoire, qui indiquent si le patient est
plong dans un tat de proximit intersubjective cratrice li sa mmoire
autobiographique, ou sil a t projet dans un systme de mmoire traumatique.
Lorsquun patient se sent immerg dans une atmosphre de mutualit intersubjective,
le dialogue prend la forme dun discours mlodieux et rythmique mettant en vidence
une imitation rciproque improvise, avec thme et variation. Quand le patient est
propuls dans un systme de mmoire traumatique, le discours devient monotone et
dcousu. En tant conscient des caractristiques acoustiques du systme de mmoire
traumatique, lanalyste est alert lorsquun glissement de ce type a lieu, ce qui implique
des rponses et des interventions appropries. La musicalit de communication
(Malloch et Trevarthen, 2009) trouve son origine dans la communication non-verbale
prcoce entre lenfant et celui qui en prend soin, et les tats dintersubjectivit primaire.
Cette musicalit reste le moyen primaire de transmettre le sens motionnel, et
dintgrer les cerveaux gauche et droit. Cela permet une communication qui exprime le
sens motionnel, la valeur personnelle aussi bien que le raisonnement conceptuel.
Mots-cls: Accord vocal, champ analytique, intersubjectivit primaire, musicalit de
communication, discours du soi, psycho-acoustique, systme de mmoire traumatique.

Dieser Beitrag verwendet eine Fallvignette um zu zeigen, da musikalische Elemente der

Sprache eine wichtige Informationsquelle darstellen hinsichtlich der emotionalen Zustnde
und des damit verbundenen Erinnerungssystems des Patienten, die zu einem bestimmten
Zeitpunkt im analytischen Feld aktiviert werden. Es gibt bestimmte psychoakustische
Marker, die mit unterschiedlichen Gedchtnissystemen zusammenhngen, die anzeigen,
ob ein Patient in einen Zustand der kreativen intersubjektiven Bezogenheit auf das
autobiographische Gedchtnis eingetaucht ist, oder ob bei ihm ein traumatisches
Erinnerungssystem aktiviert wurde. Wenn sich ein Patient in eine Atmosphre der
intersubjektiven Gegenseitigkeit eingetaucht fhlt, nimmt der Dialog eine rhythmische und
melodische Form der Rede an mit improvisierter gegenseitiger Imitation, Thema und
Variation.
Wenn der Patient in ein traumatisches Erinnerungssystem katapultiert wird, wird die
Sprache monoton und unzusammenhngend. Das Wissen um solche akustischen
Charakteristika des traumatischen Erinnerungssystems warnt den Analytiker davor, da
eine solche Verschiebung stattgefunden hat, die nach angemessenen Antworten und
Interventionen verlangt. Kommunikative Musikalitt (Malloch & Trevarthen 2009)
stammt aus der frhesten nonverbalen Gesangskommunikation zwischen Sugling und

638

Judith Pickering

Pegeperson, aus Zustnden der primren Intersubjektivitt. Solche Musikalitt bleibt das
primre Vehikel zur bermittlung emotionaler Bedeutung und zur Integration von rechter
und linker Hemisphre. Dies ermglicht eine Kommunikation, die emotionale Bedeutung,
persnlichen Wert sowie konzeptionelle Schlufolgerung zum Ausdruck bringt.
Schlsselwrter: kommunikative Musikalitt, vokale Einstimmung, traumatisches
Erinnerungssystem, primre Intersubjektivitt, psychoakustisch, analytisches Feld,
Erzhlungen des Selbst.

In questo lavoro viene usato brevemente un caso per mostrare come gli elementi musicali
del discorso siano una risorsa di informazioni che riguardano gli stati emotivi del
paziente e i diversi sistemi di memoria che indicano se un paziente immerso in uno
stato di relazione intersoggettiva creativa connesso ad una memoria autobiograca
oppure stato trascinato in un sistema traumatico di memoria. Quandoun paziente si
sente immerso in una atmosfera di reciprocit intersoggettiva, il dialogo assume una
forma di discorso ritmica e musicale, che presenta unimprovvisa imitazione, tematica
e variazione reciproca. Quando invece il paziente viene catapultato in un sistema di
memoria traumatico, il discorso diventa monotono e sconnesso.
Essere consapevole di tali forme acustiche del sistema traumatico di memoria mette lanalista
in guardia sul fatto che si vericata una tale svolta, permettendo cos risposte e interventi
appropriati. La musicalit comunicativa (Malloche&Trevarthen 2009) origina nella prima
comunicazione non verbale fra il bambino e chi si prende cura di lui. Tale musicalit
continua ad essere il veicolo primario per la trasmissione di segnali emotivi e per
lintegrazione degli emisferi di destra e di sinistra. Ci rende possibile la comunicazione che
esprime signicati emotivi, valori personali e anche ragionamenti concettuali.
Parole chiave: musicalit comunicativa, modulazione vocale, sistema traumatico di memoria,
intersoggettivit primaria, psicoacustica, campo analitico, narrazioni del S.

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Acoustic resonance at the dawn of life

639

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El presente ensayo parte de una vieta clnica para mostrar como los elementos musicales
del habla son una fuente crucial de informacin del estado emocional del paciente y sus
sistemas de memoria asociados, los cuales son activados en cualquier momento dentro
del campo analtico. Hay marcas psicoacsticas especcas asociadas a los diferentes
sistemas de memoria, las cuales indican si un paciente est inmerso en un estado
relacional intersubjetivo creativo, o si se ha desencadenado un sistema de memoria
traumtico. Cuando un paciente se siente inmerso en una atmsfera de mutuo
intercambio intersubjetivo, el dilogo se expresa en un discurso rtmico y entonado,
mostrando improvisadas imitaciones recprocas, temas y variaciones. Cuando el
paciente se ve catapultado hacia un sistema de memoria traumtico, su discurso
deviene montono y desarticulado. Ser conciente de estos rasgos acsticos del sistema
de memoria traumtico anuncia al analista que semejante pasaje ha tenido lugar
posibilitando respuestas e intervenciones apropiadas. Una musicalidad comunicativa
(Malloch & Trevarthen 2009) se origina en la comunicacin vocal no-verbal ms
temprana entre el infante y el cuidador, estados de intersubjetividad primaria.
Semejante musicalidad contina siendo la va primaria para transmitir el sentido de la
emocin y para integrar los hemisferios derecho e izquierdo. Esto posibilita una
comunicacin que puede dar lugar al signicado emocional, valor personal as como al
razonamiento conceptual.
Palabras clave: musicalidad comunicativa, entonamiento vocal, sistema de memoria
traumtica, intersubjetividad primaria, psicoacstica, campo analtico, narrativas del
self.

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