It is the focus of this paper to look at the idea of resistance as providing information on the primary object experience. Using this information, the music therapist needs to assess his or her role in playing music during the session, in the same way that he or she assesses verbal interventions.

This paper explores the process of music therapy in the treatment of people suffering from anorexia nervosa, with reference to individual clinical work undertaken at an acute psychiatric unit specialising in eating disorders, and at an in-patient child and adolescent psychiatry unit. Case material illustrates ways in which music therapy supports the individual while addressing the often deeply-rooted problems commonly associated with eating disorders. These problems include issues of personal identity, negative self-image, distorted body-image, intellectualisation, difficulty in relationships, and issues of autonomy and control, Dynamic forms of spontaneous improvisational music-making and musical therapeutic intervention are discussed.

This article looks at the way we make sense of the world around us, and how autism can affect this. It goes on to consider the relationship of music to ourselves, and then, in the light of these issues, why music used therapeutically may have particular relevance for people with autism. This is illustrated in the final section by brief case studies of individual music therapy work with children with autism.