Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

support and explain how BMGIM can be a beneficial psychosocial intervention with
cancer survivors. Core categories of client-defined outcome were identified and
described, providing a catalogue of clinical outcomes as experienced by the cancer
survivors themselves. Core metaphors and image configuration were documented,
identified and described using a terminology that can easily be adapted in clinical
practice and training. From a clinical point of view a very important result was that
the imagery was not predominantly cancer-specific. This suggests that a supportive
and reconstructive process must not necessarily focus on specific issues related to the
disease, rather on more general issues of self-understanding and coping in a period of
transition, where a change of perspective is of great importance. The participants in
this study were ‘beyond treatment’, in a stage of ‘moving on’ from a status as ‘cancer
patients’, and in this transition phase they might find it attractive to let go of thoughts
and images related to the disease. Following this line of thought, the image categories
and types of processes identified in the music-listening periods can be considered a
descriptive catalogue of imagery experiences not only of cancer survivors; it is
probably applicable to survivors of other medical conditions as well. However, the
study also documented that the ‘imagery profiles’ (the ‘travel style’) of the
participants were highly personal. This underlines the importance of the therapist’s
awareness, not only of the client’s needs as reflected in the content and transformation
of the imagery, but also of the client’s predominant image modalities and ‘modes of
experience’, as reflected in the categorization of the imagery. The proposed grounded
theory of the BMGIM process (table 6.11) places the activation of the client’s will to
change as the pivotal point in the therapeutic process, and the discussion above
includes suggestions for how the clinician may focus on the client’s ability to wish
and how the BMGIM experiences of music and imagery may stimulate this ability. It
does not seem to be possible to influence the development of new coping strategies in
a direct way.
The overview of the music selections and programs used in the sessions is one of the
first documentations of how the music in BMGIM is actually used by an experienced
practitioner in multiple cases. As mentioned earlier, in BMGIM training the gradual
development from ‘basic’ programs to ‘working’ programs and ‘special’ or
‘advanced’ programs is taught, but I have never seen a major documentation of the
actual use of the three program categories or levels in the literature. (In case studies
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