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Music in the head, living at the mind-brain border, by Leo Rangell, M.D., London, Karnac, 2009, 93 pp., £14.99
This short book describes an account of an extraordinary life-change experienced by the author, one that was challenging, full of surprises and in many ways inspiring to readers. There is no doubting the credentials of the author, Dr Leo Rangell, who is a leading figure in American psychoanalysis, a former President of both the American and International Psychoanalytic Associations, and author of eight books and over 500 papers. No previous publication of his, though, will approach this in terms of the kind of story told, its personal nature and the likelihood to appeal to people well outside our field.
At the age of 82, Dr Rangell began to experience a range of symptoms that reminded him of previous cardiac problems, and major heart surgery ensued, after which he began to experience symptoms that meant that his life would never be the same again. His descriptions are throughout told with a sharp mind, an analytic ear and a capacity to convey personal experiences in an engaging way. He combines both autobiographical story-telling and a descriptive style in the best traditions of psychoanalytic case-history writing. He manages all this in a way that suggests an enormous amount of processing and thoughtful analysis has taken place, albeit with himself playing the parts of both patient and analyst.
He describes awakening from his operation with a range of semi-hypnotic and hallucinatory experiences, as one might expect following such a major event and with the kind of anaesthetic drugs used. He soon also realised he was hearing music, which he was convinced came from a building on a nearby hillside. It took a huge amount of persuading from his closest family and others before he had to admit that the incessant musical accompaniment heralded not from anywhere outside himself, but from somewhere inside his own mind, a truth that he strongly resisted at first. He w