Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

and final transformation as rebirth (parallel to stages 11-12-1 in The Great Round of
the Mandala). A good example of this is “the maple tree” cycle from INLAs very first
session.
All in all it is evident that many different narrative matrices can be used to describe
and understand the deeper meaning and dynamics in the processes of transformation
in BMGIM. A more extensive theoretical suggestion would be that narrative matrices
or structures are inborn potentials related to what Horowitz called the “image” and the
“lexical” representational systems (table 3.6), and that ‘metaphor’ is the bridge
between the systems, as it is the basic component of the healing narrative, rooted in
the non-verbal image experience.
Not all BMGIM sessions are characterized by crystal clear metaphors or full and
beautiful narratives. On the contrary, in many sessions images and metaphors just
‘pop up’ and disappear; or smaller, well-defined but isolated narrative episodes are
configured (level one or two in the suggested three-level model). These very common
features are reflected in the image categorization systems of Goldberg and Grocke. In
this study, examples of levels two and three in the author’s model have illustrated the
relevance of Ricoeur’s theories in BMGIM. In the interviews, in the analyses of
imagery from the first sessions of three participants, and in the case studies the
participants’ description of their life situation before entering the project and their
interpretations of imagery from the first session present the prefiguration of Mimesis1.
It has been shown how narrative episodes or complete narratives are configured in the
music listening periods – spontaneously and guided non-directively by music and
therapist – according to the dynamic principles of Mimesis2. Emplotment was shown,
and transformations following the well-known narrative rules of hero(ine) myths and
fairy tales were identified. The refiguration of Mimesis3 is present in the participants’
interpretation of core images in the interviews and developed in the core categories of
the interview study. It would have been possible to use the metaphor theory of Lakoff
and Johnson, or the clinical perspective of psychotherapist Ellen Siegelman (1990) to
go deeper into the analysis of the discrete metaphors. However, this would still be an
investigation on only one or two of the three levels suggested. The strength of
Ricoeur’s theory is that it encompasses all three levels and gives a satisfactory
explanation of how metaphors are configured into narratives in a dynamic process,
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