Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

accessing causality, understood as the identification of “mechanisms, going beyond sheer
association. It is unrelentingly local, and deals with the complex network of events and
processes in a situation. It can sort out the temporal dimension, showing clearly what
preceded what, either through direct observation or retrospection. It is well equipped to cycle
back and forth between variables and processes – showing that ‘stories’ are not capricious,
but include underlying variables, and that variables are not disembodied, but have connections
over time.” (Robson 2002, p. 475, the quote is from Miles and Huberman (1994) Qualitative
Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook, 2 nd edition.) In this quote, including several words
normally associated with a positivist paradigm, I find several characteristics reflecting the
properties and intentions of my own project.
10. Clarification of how the research questions 5-7 are linked with the primary issue of
causality:
As indicated above I do not consider questions 4 or 5-7 “linked” with (a primary issue of)
causality, but as questions leading to complementary, experiential knowledge about the
“influence” of BMGIM, music and imagery on the six participants, in a broad meaning.
11. Clarification of what is meant by "evidence" (p. 121):
“Evidence” is used on p. 121 in the context of “Evidence-based practice” (as taught in the
Aalborg training program), thus referring to a positivist understanding of a hierarchy of
research based documentation formats. Music therapists need to be informed about this. In
other sections of the dissertation “Evidence” is used in the much broader perspective of
qualitative realism (e.g. p. 337 and 357).
12. The dichotomy between the disparate paradigms, ontology and epistemology:
Wilber’s “Integral psychology” (Wilber 2000), and many of his earlier works, are based on
the so-called ‘phase-3” model of development and evolution, “namely the idea of relatively
universal basic structures (levels or waves of development) through which numerous different
developmental lines or streams proceed in a largely independent fashion. The basic waves
themselves are simply a sophisticated version of the Great Nest of Being, matter to body to
soul to spirit, with each senior nest transcending and including its predecessors.” (Collected