A.-P.-P. Inter-Centres Bulletin No. 12 (February 1978)

Bulletin of the International Association of Audio-Psycho-Phonology (A.I.A.P.P.), No. 12, February 1978. The cover bears the printed heading “Association Internationale d’Audio-Psycho-Phonologie” and the title “Bulletin A.-P.-P. Inter Centres” (referred to in the text by the acronym B.I.C.); it serves as a link between the centres practising Alfred Tomatis’s audio-psycho-phonology (A.P.P.) method.

This first issue of the year 1978 opens with an editorial devoted to two practitioner physicians, two brothers, whose contributions run through the issue. The first, the elder of the two, works in a military neuro-psychiatry department and presented at the Pau Congress work on the contribution of the Electronic Ear treatment in a hospital setting (a report is attached as an annex). The second, a practising physician, signs the issue’s main text, “The Liberation of Oedipus, or the Disease of Medicine” — a title borrowed from a work by Professor Tomatis: in it he develops a reflection on the contemporary crisis of medicine, on the tension between general practitioners and specialists, and on the place of listening in the relationship between physician and patient. An open letter from another member extends this debate by responding to a communiqué concerning the negotiations on the reimbursement of treatment programmes by Social Security, and by defending the principle of a therapeutic relationship grounded in listening rather than in a purely administrative logic.

The bulletin then brings together the network’s practical and news sections: the detailed calendar of A.P.P. training sessions (sessions S1, S2 and S3) for the first half of 1978, divided between the Paris centre and the Carboneras centre, as well as in Montreal and Ottawa; the continuation of a feature “Why Mozart?” exploring, on the basis of cited texts, the freedom and objectivity of the Mozartian sound world; the account of the visit to France of a South African clinical psychologist, sent by a South African A.P.P. team to meet Professor Tomatis and visit several European centres; and the account of the trip to Canada, in late 1977, of an A.P.P. team that came to deliver training sessions and prepare the 5th International Congress (scheduled for May 1978 in Toronto and Montreal). The issue closes with the usual sections — publications, English glossary of audio-psycho-phonology, press review, radio and television, lectures and congresses — supplemented in an annex by a registration form and the congress programme. The persons and clinical situations mentioned are referred to here in general terms, with no personal identifying data reproduced.

Historical context — In 1978, Alfred Tomatis’s audio-psycho-phonology method was disseminated by an international network of centres federated within the A.I.A.P.P. This issue testifies both to the medical roots of the method (reflection on the practice of medicine, research on the Electronic Ear in a hospital department, debate on the reimbursement of treatment programmes) and to its international expansion, with training sessions outside France, exchanges with practitioners from South Africa, and preparations for the 5th International Congress held in Canada.