E-Book of Articles - World Federation of Music Therapy

Schulberg, Cecilia: Many Vioces In One ...
Many Voices in One: Healing the Effects of Collective
Transgenerational Trauma through the Bonny Method of Guided
Imagery and Music, A GIM Case Study
Cecilia H. Schulberg, MT-BC, MM, MFT
GIM, developed during the 1970s by Helen Bonny at the Maryland
Psychiatric Research Institute, is a music-centered, transformational process
that allows an individual or group to work through issues in a safe arena
provided by the music. This involves "conscious listening" to specially
selected music in a deeply relaxed, dream-like state. Archetypal symbols
and images expansive enough to hold collective as well as personal
experiences are evoked by the music. The elements inherent in the music--
-pitch, rhythm, timbre, dynamics, tempo---allow the music to access and
interact among various levels of consciousness while providing a container
powerful enough to hold the experiences it evokes. Material is manifested
in sensorial images (visual, auditory, olfactory and gustatory), feelings,
memories, kinesthetic responses and transpersonal experiences. Processing
these experiences through mandala drawings brings closure, reinforcement
and a link between inner and outer reality.
Motivated by my own healing experiences with GIM as a child of survivors of
the Nazi Holocaust, I began using GIM with other children of Holocaust
survivors, individually and in group, with the focus of addressing the effects
of the Nazi Holocaust. They ranged in ages from early twenties through
late forties, mostly middle class, educated. They came from a broad
spectrum of backgrounds and perspectives of how they live their lives as
Jews, and how they experienced the impact of the war in their lives. Some
did not even know that they were Jewish (much less that a parent was a
survivor of the Holocaust) until their teens or early adulthood. Some have
reached the peak in their professions; others struggled. Some are married,
some have children, some are single. Some grew up and live in Germany;
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