Abstract - Client Perspectives on the Music Experience in Music-centered Guided Imagery and Music

Client Perspectives on the Music Experience in Music-centered Guided Imagery and Music

The purpose of this qualitative research study is to better understand the client perspective of GIM

Abstract:

The purpose of this qualitative research study is to better understand the client perspective of GIM. Following an examination of six of my published articles and a period of self-inquiry to identify my pre-existing assumptions about music in GIM sessions, I solicited six well functioning adults capable of rich verbal description. Each participant received one music-centered GIM session adhering to the traditional protocols from the Bonny Method of GIM with the exception of two modifications: 1) repeated music – instead of a music program comprised of different pieces, the music program included repeated hearings of the same piece; and 2) music-centered guiding – instead of verbal interventions that focus primarily on imagery, the interventions focused primarily on the music. After the GIM session, each participant was interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. The data consisted of the audiotapes and transcripts of the six GIM sessions and six interviews. A multilayered, hermeneutic analysis of the data was conducted to answer the following research questions about music-centered GIM:
How do participants experience the music?
How do participants understand the music?
How do I understand the music?

The first analysis of the individual sessions and interviews yielded narrative descriptions of the “music transference” and the “music episodes” that had occurred for each participant. Looking across the six case studies in the second analysis I discovered thirteen recurrent themes that represent the synthesized client perspective. The third analysis revealed an additional perspective about the music experience in regard therapist interventions: when repeated music and music-centered guiding are used, the intention of the therapist is to establish the music as the primary therapeutic agent of the GIM session. The three part analyses culminated in an illumination of the two simultaneous, interdependent, relational processes occurring during the music in GIM – the music relation and the self relation. When the client’s relation towards the music deepened, there was a concomitant transformation in the self relation through a projection-reintrojection cycle resulting in a reconstructive, transformation of consciousness. All findings from the layered analyses have applications to GIM clinical practice and training.