Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

• A Heuristic Music Analysis of the music selections (including
Phenomenological description, a Structural Method of Music Analysis
(SMMA) and Intensity profiles
• An event structure analysis, correlating the imagery of the clients with the
findings of the music analysis
• A grounded theory analysis of the imagery/narrative (types and configurations
of the imagery)
Results of the music and imagery study included the identification of three categories
of music: supportive, mixed and challenging music, each category with specific
therapeutic potentials. A close interplay of music and imagery/metaphors was
uncovered: the configuration of the metaphors followed the narrative matrix of the
music. A grounded theory on the therapeutic functions of music and musical elements
in BMGIM was proposed.
The discussion (chapter 9) relates the findings of the study (chapters 5-8) to previous
research (chapter 2) and to the theoretical basis (chapter 3). This study supports the
suggestion from previous research that ten BMGIM sessions may be sufficient to
improve mood and quality of life in cancer survivors. And it suggests that this effect
may partially be as a result of the reconfiguration of metaphors and narratives in the
therapeutic process, as suggested by Paul Ricoeur’s theoretical models adapted to
psychotherapy and BMGIM. Important themes discussed are the role of will and the
participants ‘willing’ for therapeutic change, in psychotherapy in general and in
BMGIM in specific. It is suggested that BMGIM is especially well suited to stimulate
the participants’ capacity to wish, which is the necessary precondition for mobilizing
the will.
The discussion also included defining the limitations of the study, clinical applications
and directions for further research. The most important critique of the study, from the
viewpoint of the fixed design tradition, was that the number of participants is small
and the design did not include a control group or a control condition. This meant that
none of the findings reported in the quantitative investigations can be ascribed to the
BMGIM therapy with any statistical confidence. However, from the viewpoint of the
flexible design tradition, these limitations are not crucial, even if six participants may
372