The Meta-Musical Experiences of a Professional String Quartet in Music-Centered Psychotherapy

The Meta-Musical Experiences of a Professional String Quartet in Music-Centered Psychotherapy

Heidi Ahonen & Colin Andrew Lee

Introduction

This chapter focuses on music-centered group psychotherapy with professional musicians, drawing together two models of music therapy: Group Analytic Music Therapy (GAMT) (Ahonen-Eerikainen, 2007) and Aesthetic Music Therapy (AeMT) (Lee, 2003). We will describe a series of four sessions consisting of open improvisations alongside group analytic discussions. The practice of music-centered psychotherapy with musicians is a new field, focusing on the psychological and physiological stresses they encounter.

Citation:

Ahonen, Heidi & Lee, Colin (2011) The Meta-Musical Experiences of a Professional String Quartet in Music-Centered Psychotherapy. Case Studies of Music Therapy (A. Meadows Ed.) Gilsum. NH. Barcelona Publishers. 518-542

Something in the Air: Journeys of Self-Actualization in Musical Improvisation

Something in the Air: Journeys of Self-Actualization in Musical Improvisation

By Heidi Ahonen & Marc Houde

Abstract

The aim of this qualitative, abductive, and phenomenological inquiry was to develop categories based on participants perceptions of their improvisation and listening experiences. As using improvised music in clinical music therapy is an important method, this study expanded the knowledge of and language needed to describe this very sensitive and insightful communication process. If there is something in the airwhat is it and is it something significant? Research questions included: 1. What kind of process is experienced when one improvises with an unknown person in an unfamiliar musical style? 2. What is in the air during live interactive improvisation? 3. What are the links between processes of self-actualization and peak experiences introduced by Abraham Maslow (1968) and the experiences described by the participants regarding their live improvised/interactive musical processes? The data of this study consisted of two audio-taped improvisations, three interviews, and the written reflections of six participants who participated in interactive live improvisation sessions. Ferraras method was adapted for the data collection and analysis. Research results are presented in the form of descriptive categories which give a clearer picture of what happens during the process of musical improvisation. “he author(s) gratefully acknowledge(s) that financial support for this research was received from a grant partly funded by Laurier Operating funds, and partly by the SSHRC Institutional Grant awarded to Laurier.

Citation:

Ahonen, H. & Houde, M. (2009). Something in the Air: Journeys of Self-Actualization in Musical Improvisation. Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy.

St. Joseph’s Alzheimer’s Adult Day Program Music Therapy Group

“Not bad for an old 85 year old!” —The Qualitative Analysis of the Role of Music, Therapeutic Benefits and Group Therapeutic Factors of the St. Joseph’s Alzheimer’s Adult Day Program Music Therapy Group

Heidi Ahonen-Eerikäinen, PhD, MTA
Karie Rippin, BMT, MTA
Natalie Sibille, MPA
Rhea Koch, BASc
Dawn M. Dalby, PhD

Abstract

The aim of this interdisciplinary research project was to gain new understanding into how a music therapy intervention affects the quality of life for clients with dementia. The research was based on the qualitative paradigm, adapted grounded theory, and narrative inquiry (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000; Coffey & Atkinson, 1996; Corbin & Strauss, 1998; Glaser & Strauss, 1967, 1999; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1997; Glaser, 1998; Amir; Ceglowski, 1997; Glesne, 1997). Music therapy sessions of the Music Therapy program at St. Joseph’s Health Centre, Guelph, Ontario, Canada were videotaped and qualitatively analyzed. Residents, family members, and staff were interviewed and the interviews were qualitatively analyzed in order to obtain their perspective. This article summarizes one set of the results of this interdisciplinary study, the qualitative analysis of therapeutic benefits and group therapeutic factors of the St. Joseph’s Alzheimer’s Adult Day Program Music Therapy Group. The video-taped sessions of clients with dementia showed that, by participating in the MT sessions, they (1.) were able to work through some of their initial negative feelings (e.g., feeling sad, frustrated, stupid), (2.) began to feel proud of their accomplishments and eventually (3.) began to really enjoy the experience. The research project was funded by the Lloyd Carr-Harris Foundation.

Citation:

Ahonen-Eerikainen, H., Rippin, K., Sibille, N., Koch, R., Dawn, D. (2007) “Not bad for an old 85 year old!” —The Qualitative Analysis of the Role of Music,Therapeutic Benefits and Group Therapeutic Factors of the St. Joseph’s Alzheimer’s Adult Day Program Music Therapy Group. Canadian Music Therapy 2, 37-64.

Rehabilitation for Children with Cerebral Palsy

Rehabilitation for Children with Cerebral Palsy: Seeing Through the Looking Glass

Enhancing Participation and Restoring Self-Image through the Virtual Music Instrument

Heidi Ahonen-Eerikäinen Ph.D., MTA,
Andrea Lamont MMT, MTA,
Roger Knox Ph.D.

Citation:

Ahonen-Eerikäinen H, Lamont A & Knox R. (2008). Rehabilitation for Children with Cerebral Palsy:Seeing Through the Looking Glass
–Enhancing Participation and Restoring Self-Image through the Virtual Music Instrument
International Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation.12 (2), 41-66

Abstract;

This paper presents the results of a qualitative pilot study conducted on an innovative psychosocial rehabilitation technology developed and applied at Bloorview Kids Rehab, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  The Virtual Music Instrument (VMI) developed by Dr. Tom Chau is a video-capture software program that increases music-making opportunities for children and youth and allows children with disabilities to play musical sounds and melodies using gestures. The qualitative study was conducted to identify suitable music therapy interventions and techniques using the VMI with children with cerebral palsy (CP), to categorize areas of benefit that are made possible by the VMI, and to build theory on the role and significance of the VMI in music therapy. The research questions included: (1) What interventions and techniques are best used by the music therapist to promote the therapeutic relationship in application of the VMI? (2) In which domains is there benefit, both during sessions and over the time period of the study, from the use of this instrument within music therapy? Six participants aged 5.5 to 10 were recruited on a cross-disability basis. Each participant received ½-hour individual music therapy sessions, twice per week over 10 weeks, using the VMI. The Music Therapist employed a variety of techniques, including both clinical improvisation and task-oriented activities. The sessions were videotaped, transcribed and reviewed by a multi-disciplinary team. The clinician notes were also transcribed. Using a multiple case study qualitative methodology and grounded theory techniques, the transcribed material was coded and analyzed according to emerged themes using the QSR N6 software program. The results bring better understanding of using the VMI for optimum benefit, and also lead to theoretical and practical advances in the use of gesture recognition technology on music therapy and psychosocial rehabilitation among children with cerebral palsy

Low Frequency Sound Research

Low Frequency Sound Research  is a website that was created to connect researchers and clinicians who are excited in researching the therapeutic use and effects of low frequencies. The forum has become a go to place to connect,  exchange ideas, and share information.  We also introduce new research findings and ideas as they become available around the therapeutic use of the low frequency sound, as well as introducing,  and profiling  leaders in this field. The forum is open to join, and members are encouraged to participate freely.

Group Analytic Music Therapy by Heidi Ahonen

This book introduces Group Analytic Music Therapy (GAMT), different levels of the group, and the different characteristics of musical images. It illustrates that music is the royal road to the unconscious just like dreams. Images created during group analytic music therapy have similar clinical value to dreams. These images, just like dreams, communicate through feelings and body sensations. Their language is metaphorical, emotional and insightful. They speak from and to our hearts. In GAMT, the role of the music therapist is to find ways of making the best therapeutic use of clients feelings, thoughts, bodily sensations, dreams, and images created through music. Images created during improvisation or therapeutic music listening can be seen as part of unconscious inter-subjective and interpersonal processes within the group. In GAMT, when someone shares their musical image, other clients are encouraged to provide their own associations too. These images are their own, but at the same time part of the groups collective unconsciousness.

Divided into three sections, part one sets the philosophical foundation of GAMT. Part Two presents the theory and method of GAMT and different characteristics of musical images, while the third part illustrates theory through a clinical case study of Mary, an invisible woman who turned visible and found her voice during GAMT. The book includes both theoretical and clinical sections and several case study examples and in-depth analyses. Away from being a first of its kind in music therapy field, this book expands group music therapy theories and proposes a new way of defining clinical group music therapy practice.

Heidi Ahonen. 2007

Table of Contents

About the Author
Acknowledgments
Table of Contents
Preface
Foreword
Introduction

PART I: FOUNDATION 3 Prelude: Being a Group Member Is Part of Who I Am

Chapter 1: Family
1.1 Footprints Lead to the Sausage Factory
1.1.1 Elephants in the Therapy Room
1.1.2 Family Reunion

Chapter 2: Empathy
2.1 Lack of Empathy
2.2 Empathetic Understanding
2.3 When Good Enough Is Not Enough
2.4 Empathy or Sympathy?

Chapter 3: Therapy Room as The Waiting Room
3.1 Feeling Safe in Order to Feel Unsafe
3.1.1 Wearing Social Antennae
3.1.2 Why Is It Frightening to Come to a Therapy Group?
3.2 People Need Their Defenses
3.2.1 Sweeping Under the Carpet
3.2.2 Psychopathological Balance

Chapter 4: Home from Never-Never Land
4.1 Contact
4.2 This Sounds Like My Story!
4.3 Taking Care of Your Self
4.4 Need to Be Needed
4.5 Living in the Here and Now

Chapter 5: Metaphors
5.1 Frame
5.2 Holding Environment and Container
5.3 Envelope
5.4 Laboratory
5.5 Garden or Vineyard
5.6 Playground
5.7 Jigsaw Puzzle
5.8 Peeling an Onion
5.9 Matrix
5.9.1 Psychic Network
5.9.2 Group Climate
5.9.3 Group as a Mother

Chapter 6: Group Development
6.1 HoneymoonThe Engagement and Formative Phase
6.2 Love and HateThe Differentiation IndividuationReactive Phase
6.3 Intimacy and MutualityThe Mature Phase
6.4 DeathThe Termination Phase
6.5 Next Move?

PART II: GROUP ANALYTIC THERAPY (GAMT) 43 Prelude: Conducting the Group

Chapter 7: Free-Floating Discussion
7.1 Silence

Chapter 8: Three Windows
8.1 The Intersubjective Window
8.2 The Interpersonal Window
8.3 The Group-as-a-Whole(Group Matrix) Window

Chapter 9: Levels of the Group Matrix

Chapter 10: Building GAMT Sessions

Chapter 11: Clinical Improvisation
11.1 Referential Improvisation
11.2 Nonreferential improvisation

Chapter 12: Therapeutic Music Listening
12.1 Psychoauditive Method

Chapter 13: Images
13.1 Sharing Images
13.2 Musical Images as Symbols and Metaphors

Chapter 14: MusicThe Royal Road to the Unconscious

Chapter 15: Externalization-Internalization Process
15.1 Safe Symbolic Distance
15.2 Musical Image as Blanket
15.3 Letting Go and Holding Back

Chapter 16: Hall of Mirrors

Chapter 17: Practical Issues
17.1 Group Members
17.2 Goals
17.3 Nature of the Group
17.4 Expelling the Victim Identity
17.5 Rules
17.6 Room and Equipment

Chapter 18: Musical Images and the Group Matrix 113
18.1 Visual Analysis

Chapter 19: I Am Able to Communicate Through Music
Level of Social Interaction
19.1 Musical Image as a Tool of Communication
19.1.1 Can Improvisation Be Trivial?
19.1.2 MusicA Language Without Words
19.1.3 The Need to Belong

Chapter 20: The Music Reminds Me of My Mother
Level of Transference
20.1 Musical Image as Transference of Past Relationships
20.1.1 Empathic Failure
20.1.2 Bipolar Transference
20.1.3 Self-Object Dimension
20.1.4 Conflictual, Repetitive, and Resistive Dimension
20.2 Musical Images and Reconstruction of Trauma
20.2.1 Reconstruction of a Traumatic Event
20.2.2 Musical Trauma Reconstruction

Chapter 21: This Music Sounds as My Feelings Feel
Level of Projection
21.1 Musical Image as a Processor of Hidden
Wishes and Fears
21.1.1 We Can Fly in Our Images
21.1.2 Frightening Images in the Early
Phases of Therapy
21.2 Containing and Holding Musical Images
21.2.1 Containing UFOs
21.2.2 Music as a Not Me Personification
21.2.3 Roles Reversed
21.3 Music as an Expanding Self-Object
21.4 Musical Image as a Self-Representation
21.5 Musical Self-State

Chapter 22: This Music Touches Us All Level of Collective Unconscious
22.1 Transformative Group Image
22.1.1 In Group Language
22.1.2 Archetypal Symbols
22.1.3 Collective Communication
22.1.4 Group Images and Group Dreams
22.1.5 Musical Image as Polyphony

Chapter 23: Images and Interpretation
23.1 What to Avoid
23.2 Intimate Group Drama
23.3 Free-Floating Associations
23.4 Imagery Intervention and Interpretation
23.5 Countertransference
23.6 Vicarious Traumatization
23.7 Sharing the Journey

PART III: TOO SCARED TO BE VISIBLE
Mary: A Case Study of a Voiceless Woman
Who Found Her Identity in a Hall of Mirrors Prelude: Turning Visible Finding Lost Voices

Chapter 24: Do I Dare to Become Visible?
24.1 What Kind of Mother Will This Group Be?
24.1.1 Session 1
24.2 If I Throw Myself Into This Process, Am I Going to Become Crazier or Healthier?
24.2.1 Session 2
24.3 If I Show Myself, Am I Going to Be
Accepted or Rejected?
24.3.1 Sessions 3 and 4
24.3.2 Session 5

Chapter 25: Becoming Visible
25.1 Is It Safe for the Baby to Be Born?
25.1.1 Session 6
25.2 The Swaddled Baby
25.2.1 Session 7
25.2.2 Session 8
25.3 The Angry Baby
25.3.1 Session 9
25.3.2 Session 10
25.3.3 Sessions 11 to 14

Chapter 26: Making More Noise
26.1 Im Not Hiding
26.1.1 Session 15
26.2 Im Not Running Away
26.2.1 Session 16
26.3 Leaving It Behind
26.3.1 Sessions 17 to 19
26.3.2 Session 20
26.3.3 Session 21
26.3.4 Session 22
26.4 Shout for Help
26.4.1 Session 23

Chapter 27: Visible and Not Scared
27.1 Listen to MeLook at Me
27.1.1 Session 24
27.2 Liberation
27.2.1 Session 25
27.3 Broken Is Healed
27.3.1 Session 26

Chapter 28: Exploring Marys Dreams and Images
28.1 Babies
28.2 Houses

Chapter 29: Closure

Chapter 30: Final Words
Ready to Jump
After Flight
List of References
Appendix
List of Figures
List of Pictures
List of Tables