Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

study of BMGIM therapists’ understanding of this issue. Other constructs and categories
might be elicited, however, it could also be a possibility to use the categories suggested in this
study and elaborate them. As Robson (2002, p. 366-67) writes, there is a debate going on
concerning ‘elicited’, idiosyncratic constructs and ‘provided’ constructs.
5. The use of the term ‘psychodynamic contour’ (p.241):
The word ‘psychodynamic’ is a mistake in this context. It should have read ‘psycho-acoustic
contour or profile’. Lem’s agenda was not psychodynamic, but psychoacoustic, and he used
the concept “psycho-acoustic profile” (1999, p. 79) to enable a quantitative comparison
between the music (Pierné’s Concertstück) and the EEG data. The profile is a combination of
the digitized wave-form, EEG amplitudes and frequeincies (p. 80). One of Lem’s interesting
observations was that the relationship between the intensity of the musical stimulus and
psychophysiological response in music and imagery is very different from other music
listening conditions. However, Lem’s understanding of ‘intensity’ is based on a different
(positivist) understanding of “intensity” than the one presented in this study.
6. References to Assagioli in the section about Will in 9.2.3.2 (p. 329- 331):
In the discussion of the role of Will and Willing in section 9.2.3.2 there is no reference to the
work of the Italian psychotherapist Roberto Assagioli. However, such a reference is highly
relevant, not only because Assagioli had an important influence on GIM theory in the
Seventies and Eighties (Bonny & Savary 1973, see Meadows, A. (2002) Distinctions between
the BMGIM and other Imagery Techniques. Guided Imagery and Music: The Bonny Method
and Beyond. K.E. Bruscia and D.E. Grocke.), but also because his understanding of the Will
is a distinctive feature of his theory and method, called Psychosynthesis, as compared to other
humanistic-existential psychotherapies of that period. This becomes clear already in the
introduction to Assagioli’s Pyschosynthesis. A manual of Principles and Techniques (1965):
“The most distinctive point [between Psychosynthesis and other existential methods] perhaps
is the emphasis put upon, and the central place given in psychosynthesis to the will as an
essential function of the self and as the necessary source or origin of of all choices, decisions,
engagements. Therefore, psychosynthesis includes a careful analysis of the various phases of
the will, such as deliberation, motivation, decision, affirmation, persistence, execution, and
makes much use of various techniques for arousing, developing, strengthening and rightly