Editorial

The four papers in this issue of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy are quite different in their subject matter, but seem to me to be linked in thinking about the creation of spaces, in different sensory modalities (auditory, visual, verbal and experiential) and in different settings (a child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS), a community-based day centre, a research interview and a Balint group), where security, growth, exploration of ideas and creativity can be fostered in the minds and interpersonal spheres of the patients, clinicians, students and researchers under study.

The first two papers describe the work of non-verbal therapies – art therapy and music therapy, respectively – at a time when creative therapies are under threat within the increasingly financially constrained NHS, often due to the perception that they are not essential in the treatment of mental health difficulties. It is therefore heartening to publish accounts of on-going work of two of these treatments.

‘Going backstage: a psychoanalytically informed study with amateur musicians in adult mental health services’ by Lorcan Fingleton, John O’Connor and Greg Stynes is a very moving account of a qualitative study exploring the meaning of playing music in six men who attended mental health services and were amateur musicians. This paper addresses a little explored area, namely the therapeutic role of such music playing in the maintenance of mental health. Following a useful review of the literature on the psychological function of music and the growing evidence base for its effectiveness in ameliorating a range of mental disorders, the authors describe the results of the open interviews with the six participants that they conducted, in which they facilitated a free-association style of responses to elicit how their music playing had impacted on their mental health in both positive and negative ways. Fingleton, O’Connor and Stynes applied a psychoanalytically informed qualitative analysis to th