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Music as Language
- Source :
- American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine®. 27:7-15
- Publication Year :
- 2009
- Publisher :
- SAGE Publications, 2009.
-
Abstract
- This article is an inquiry into the potential role of music in helping to address and to articulate complex emotional states such as the feelings patients might experience during the process of an illness or while undergoing bereavement. The article is centered on the role music played in structuring and articulating the cancer treatment experience of my infant nephew. What is woven around that central core is a synthesis and analysis of various philosophical perspectives, autobiographical vignettes, and empirical research. The writer postulates that music has an essential, inherent capacity to scaffold and contain emotions. Music is also considered a means to help facilitate the expression of difficult emotions such as lamentation, longing, and fear of the unknown that are often otherwise isolating, ineffable, or unbearable for patients. A major point of inquiry in this article is whether music can serve as a nurturing love object, or as a transitional object, for a patient during times of intense distress. What is also woven throughout this article is a subexploration of various philosophical perspectives on the cultural meanings and metaphors of illness.
- Subjects :
- Male
Attitude to Death
Point (typography)
media_common.quotation_subject
Palliative Care
Infant
General Medicine
Object (philosophy)
Nephew and niece
Anecdotes as Topic
Distress
Fatal Outcome
Empirical research
Feeling
Expression (architecture)
Aesthetics
Music and emotion
Child, Preschool
Brain Stem Neoplasms
Humans
Psychology
Music Therapy
Social psychology
Language
media_common
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 19382715 and 10499091
- Volume :
- 27
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine®
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....0f971599d273c73ca326ce3d4869dfa9