Julia Werthimer wrote:

>The whole notion of "therapy" to deal with emotions would have been utterly
>alien until the dawn of this century.  Nor would it have occured to people
>to look to the arts for comfort in unhappiness.

I think people have always used some form of "therapy" or other to deal
with their emotional difficulties, but it is true that they usually did not
call it that; the actual term "therapy" was not generally extended to the
psychological realm until Freud, I believe.  For a very long time, religion
was the therapeutic method of choice (sometimes the only choice), but in
19th century Europe religion began to lose its force, at least in some
circles, and many people turned to art, especially music, for consolation,
thereby turning it into a kind of secular religion.  Consider, for example,
the words of von Schober to Schubert's "An die Musik":

   "Thou dear art, in how many gray hours,
   When the wild circle of life hemmed me in,
   Didst thou kindle my heart to warm love,
   And rapture me into a better world.

   "Often a sigh, flowing from thy harp,
   A sweet, holy harmony from thee,
   Opened the heaven of better times to me;
   Thou dear art, I thank thee for that."

Here we can clearly see music, rather than God, being considered the source
of inspiration and consolation, and one could find countless similar
descriptions of music as a healer in the 19th century.

On the other hand, if you consider therapy to mean, not symptomatic relief,
but a complete cure of the original difficulty, I would agree that it is
doubtful that music can go that far, at least for most people.  Certainly
I have not found it to be that effective myself.

Jon Johanning // [log in to unmask]