Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

and even if the participants in this study was not chosen by theoretical sampling, they
made excellent contributions to the development of the proposed theory.
It is interesting to compare the grounded theories proposed here with the proposals of
Torben Moe (Moe 2002), who investigated GMI with schizotypical patients in a
psychiatric hospital. Even if the population and the group format of Moe’s study are
very different from the present study there are some similarities in the proposed
categories and theory. Moe found that restitutional moments supported by the GMI
therapy occurred at four specific levels: cognitive, emotional, interpersonal and as
“Images which express core problems” (Moe 2002, p. 157) Categories on the
cognitive level include self knowledge, effort to solve problems and improved self-
coherence. Categories on the emotional level included installation of hope, “feeling
the feelings” and ability to contain ambivalent emotions. Moe’s theoretical
proposition is that GMI facilitates a development from concrete to abstract thinking
through the enhancement of symbolic self-representation in the individual music and
imagery experiences, and contained by the group. “The role of the music is partly to
function as a safety-providing factor, and thereby a structuring element, and partly as
a projection screen.” (Ibid, p. 159) “The image formation symbolizes the patient’s
inner object (con)figurations, and the development of the patient is reflected in the
transformation and reconfigurations of the images.” (p. 161) The ego strength of the
participants and their ‘defensive manoeuvres’ in the present study was at a very
different level. Using Wilber’s Fulcrum model 64 Moe’s patients can be described at
level two, with severe psychological and interpersonal problems requiring structuring-
building techniques, while the participants in this study can be described at level five
and six, with identity problems being addressed through introspection and existential
therapy. And yet, there are similarities in the categories and in the therapeutic
function of music and imagery identified in the studies. Improved self-knowledge,
installation of hope and the emergence of core metaphors are common factors, and in
principle the role of the music and the imagery are the same.
64 It would be possible to relate the proposed theory to relevant psychological theories, not only to
Wilber’s Fulcrum model (Wilber 2000; see Bonde 2002), but also to Kohut’s theory of music as self
object (Sand and Levin 1992). It is not possible to go into such a discussion here, but it is my
impression that the proposed theory is not in conflict with either of the mentioned theories.
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