Response to Austin

The world is deep,

Deeper than day had been aware.

I am very pleased by the interest JAPA has shown in my article and feel honored by the response John Austin has generously composed, enriching us with the creativity and accomplished musicianship that inform his point of view.

He rightly stresses the specificity of the use of music in treatment, which “can occur only in instances dictated by the particular sensibilities of analyst, patient, or both” (p. 1218). I find particularly valuable the interest in the specificity of experience shown by a group of analysts and analytic couples, putting into perspective a certain positivist absolutism in psychoanalytic thought. Thus, as Loewald (1974) astutely observed, “we begin to recognize that science and art are not as far apart from one another as Freud and his scientific age liked to assume. Science's dignity is not readily offended today by the suggestion that both art and science make use of creative imagination” (p. 352).

“Obviously, it is not necessary for an analyst to be a music lover capable of revelatory musical associations,” Austin further states (p. 1217). As I suggest in my paper, the musical perspective on time and reverie seems to present broader possibilities if it is viewed more inclusively as a model of exchange at a protosensory level that can unfold in keeping with the characteristics of our different sensibilities and various specialized sense organs. It is no accident that Austin perceives my music-related experiences as “a sort of psychic body language helpful in creating an ambience that invites the patient's explorations” (p. 1217). In emphasizing the activation of this “sort of psychic body language,” he seems to underline its placement in the more general sphere of mind-body relations. I stress this aspect because the musical melodies I refer to in my article evoke the sensory melodies (visual, kinesthetic, gustatory, etc.) known to every