ABSTRACT
Among the names cited below whose work influenced the paper, William James and Paul Schilder are paramount in their insistence on the normal close relationship between affect and motion. Surprise, recognition, and embrace might, thus, be an infantile precursor of empathic capacity and a subjective model of early affect regulation and its never-ending higher-level transformations. One may reasonably suppose that the progressively new experience resulting from the radical creativity of art exceeds the regulation and transformation of affect that occurs "naturally" in everyday life, including humour-such a valuable lubricant. In contrast, the transformation of affect that occurs through art comprises qualities of life such as enhanced sensibility and sensitivity: sensibility to nuances of feeling, as distinguished from intellect, and emotional sensitivity, discernment, and responsiveness to sensory stimuli. Musical listening in therapy involves an oscillating attention, between global and focused.
