Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

and why they are comprehensible and productive to clients. The ‘emplotment’
concept has a special relevance in psychotherapy, because this brings a new clarity to
the client’s problems and their life story. The time dimension of the mimesis model is
both crucial and enigmatic. What is actually happening when the configuration of
episodes or elements from past and present are synthesized in a plot pointing towards
the future? What is the role of the music – the virtual timespace – in the ‘unlocking’
of the time dimension and the stimulation of the narrative flow? These questions are
addressed later in the discussion. Ricoeur does not leave space for emotion in his
theory, and this may be surprising, since katharsis was a core concept in Aristotle’s
theory, and since the ethical dimension of the refiguration in Mimesis3 must be
closely connected to the emotional qualities of the configurations in Mimesis2.
Refiguration cannot be considered an intellectual or purely cognitive matter.
Polkinghorne (1988) writes: “The effectiveness of narrative truth is linked more to its
persuasiveness than to its truth”. The emotional dimension of the BMGIM experience
can be very persuasive – as documented in this study. Experiential therapy defines
insight as an integration of cognitive and emotional recognition.
“Psychoanalysis is not merely the listening to an analysand’s story. It is a dialogue
through which the story is transformed. The plot brought by the analysand lacks
the dynamic necessary to create a sequence, or design, that integrates and
explains. The fuller plot constructed by the analytic work leads to a more
dynamic, and thus more useful, plot which serves as a more powerful shaping and
connective force. The new story must above all be hermeneutically forceful and
must carry the power of conviction for both its tellers and its listeners”.
(Polkinghorne 1988, p. 179)
“The new story” is also the goal of reconstructive BMGIM therapy. However, a
defining difference between the narrative in psychoanalysis and BMGIM is that the
BMGIM therapist would never make ‘authoritative’ interpretations or retell the story
of the client, even if that could be considered helpful. In BMGIM the mimetic work is
performed by the client: he or she provides the metaphors, and assisted by the music
and the therapist he or she may construct a new plot and configure the story anew.
Formulated as a Ricoeur paraphrase: The narrative opens a world we can live in. It
reconstructs our world of action. It is an attempt to solve our problems by indicating
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