Derrington 2012 thesis.pdf - Anglia Ruskin Research Online

particularly well with adolescents and appear key to a method that has come about
from my work with adolescents.
Music therapy provides a time to share the experience of being creative and
exploratory and a time to lead and make choices (Derrington, 2004). Away from peer
pressure, students seem to enjoy this opportunity to express a part of themselves in a
free and spontaneous way that can otherwise get ignored. Working on their own, they
do not have to keep up with trends and worry about keeping their street credibility.
Even those who are initially inhibited and guarded can become more open to the idea
once they start playing and often realise that they do not have to keep up the
appearance of being tough. Once they see what music therapy can offer them and are
no longer held back by these constraints, more in-depth clinical aims can be set.
These could include helping them to understand the impact of their behaviour both on
themselves and on other people, increasing self-esteem and self-awareness.
Many students are referred to music therapy because they suffer from extremely low
self-esteem and teenagers with emotional and behavioural difficulties often lack
empathy so they are insensitive to the pain they cause others. Similarly they cannot
always understand why others behave the way they do, so can quickly feel rejected.
These difficulties mean that their need for individual attention can be great which is
why the work is usually one-to-one.
4.3 A theoretical framework
Any encounter in music therapy sessions ‘presents a complex and multi-layered
generating, expressing and conveying of emotional feelings and is dependent upon
the music therapist’s capacity to generate, judge and read emotional responses to the
music by patients within therapy’ (Bunt and Pavlicevic, 2001, p.184). Various
theoretical approaches can be employed to help understand the therapeutic process
and inform the therapist’s response.
Alvin’s model (1975; 1978) highlighted improvisation as a key way to relate to
clients in an interactive approach that was not based on rules or structures imposed by
the therapist. Her model of free improvisation, based on humanistic and
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