Restituerende faktorer i gruppemusikterapi med psykiatriske patienter.

In GIM the music listening provides an ongoing stream of images and associations
which often develop and transform, but considering the more fragile patient
category I worked with, I choose a controlled format of music and imagery, and the
sessions were very structured. The music-listening phase was limited to only 10
minutes of a 1_-hour session, and each patient reported his/her experiences after
the music-listening phase was over.
It was my impression during the period before the study, that the patients benefited
from the music therapy, and my hypothesis was that selected music and guiding
helped the patients in structuring their inner world of experiences. Inspired by these
experiences, I initiated a study in 1995 together with the research team at the
hospital, with the aim to describe the effects of the music therapy in the course of a 6-
month period.
Purpose of the study
The purpose of the study is to investigate, if and how it is possible to help
psychiatric patients with serious illness, to gain or regain the capability of
symbolizing. The hypothesis is that the patients through their experiences during
the music listening create images of there inner self, which can lead to symbol
formation, and eventually a sense of inner control; in other words that the patients
inner object relations will be configured in the experiences during the music
listening and that the patients level of functioning both socially and psychologically
will improve. The second purpose of the study is to investigate in the patients’ view
of the method used and if, and how they profited of the therapy according to their
formulated goals, and the problems stated in the anamnesis. The main question
was which information do I gain from the patients experience during the music
listening, and the focus became “restitutional factors in the therapy process from
the patients experiences during listening to music”.
Methodology
Part 1.
The effect of music therapy on the patients' level of functioning
and the patients' own evaluation of the music therapy. The research tools are the
Global Assessment of Functioning Scale (GAF), a Questionnaire survey after
termination of therapy, and a semi-structured interview based on a mood test and five
additional questions concerning the patients’ view of the therapy.
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