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Clinical and experimental investigations have demonstrated that music may serve subtle and complex psychological functions, the sounds per se serving more primitive roles than the themes and lyrics. The present study offers data obtained during the psychoanalysis of a musically talented man who had suffered life-threatening croup and asthma until the age of 5 or 6. Regression that was achieved as the result of interpretations based on the analyst's countertransferential responses revealed that the analysand was unable to achieve psychological separation from his mother and that music served predominantly the function of retaining a life-supporting connexion with her. Presumably as the result of a complex elaboration of respiratory and auditory introjection, music came to symbolize the noise of air flowing through tubes into the steam tents and blood coursing through the umbilical cord, conceptualized as connecting him with his mother and making them permanently interdependent.
The early ego defect was overcome through a transference-countertransference interaction that is delineated in detail. Then, the less primitive meanings and psychological uses of musical themes and lyrics were elucidated, again in response to interpretations based on countertransference reactions.