PSYCHOLOGY WITHOUT WORDS? REVIEW OF THE USE OF SOUND ENERGY IN ROLANDO BENENZON´S MUSICTHERAPY

Abstract

Art therapies have most commonly emerged from well-intentioned but only empirical praxis, which have been nowadays systematized in order to develop an evidence baseddiscipline with its own theoretical framework. So, they have been probed as health promoters and later, as psychotherapy, at least on an exploratory level. Dr. Rolando O. Benenzon, psychiatrist and musician, built a methodology based on psychoanalysis, and so, oriented to clinical work. His work with music and other sounds resulted in interventions on hospitalized chronic patients, and after that in other fields, as students or minor offenders. Therefore, a critical review of the Benenzon model is presented, as a therapeutic proposal to provide communication alternatives to children who, due to different factors, tend to have limitations in affective development and in their interpersonal relationships