ABSTRACT
Music therapists are working to develop models for understanding clinical music therapy practice. This often involves fertilisation from other fields (Bruscia, 1987, Rudd, 1980). Though there has been exploration of the application of psychoanalytic theory and technique to music therapy work, little has been written comparing the client-therapist relationship in music therapy sessions with mother-infant interactions (Pavlicevic, 1988; Steele 1986). Mother-infant observation serves as the foundation of much psychoanalytic training (Bick, 1964). Indeed it was Freud (1921) who sensitively described the child's experience of loss as explored with a cotton reel.
