Music is part of everyday life, and is generally regarded as therapeutic. There is
increasing interdisciplinary interest in innate human musicality and the link
between music and the emotions. Innate musicality is evident in the dynamic forms of
emotional expression that both regulate and cultivate the foundations of meaning in
human communication (intersubjectivity). This article discusses music therapy,
drawing from interdisciplinary perspectives, and illustrated by case material of
individual music therapy with a sexually abused child. Where the growth of mind and
meaning is devastated at its core by early relational trauma, music, when used with
clinical perception, may reach and work constructively with damaged children in an
evolving, musically mediated therapeutic relationship.
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