Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

was that core images did emerge and were configured into meaningful episodes,
because this enabled the participants to explore and work with their therapeutic issues
at an emotional and embodied level. Both participants gave examples of how new
insights from the therapy were transformed into new types of action in their daily
lives.
Formulated as an analogical generalization, the BMGIM client’s ability and readiness
to acknowledge (“own”), understand (“interpret”) and process (“use”) the imagery
experienced in the music listening periods is a crucial factor in the activation of the
will to change. Bruscia (1996) has given a both poetic and precise metaphoric
description of how clients may deal with metaphors in the music travel (“The Door”,
appendix 8.3). A more prosaic characterisation of the client’s attitude towards the
imagery may include the following types (going from therapeutically unproductive to
productive)
Table 9. 1 Evaluation of Responses to Imagery in Clients
• The client rejects the imagery as futile or meaningless.
• The client is sceptical and unwilling to adopt the imagery
• The client appeals to the therapist for help to understand and adopt the imagery
• The client adopts the imagery and is willing to work to understand and integrate it
in collaboration with the therapist
• The client adopts the imagery, understands it intuitively and can relate it to the
focus
The open and daring attitude of the last type of client attitude is present in some
clients from the beginning. With others it must be gradually established, and the
‘types’ may also describe ‘stages’ in the therapeutic process. A successful process
demands that the client takes responsibility for the imagery and its messages. Only in
this way can intrapersonal changes experienced in the imagery be transformed into the
development of coping mechanisms and changing inappropriate scripts – which is
how the outcome of the therapy gradually appears in the interpersonal relationships.
Because of the emergence of this very important aspect from the results of this study,
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