pieghevole

Rage and mourning: the creative arts therapies (Room 4)
Stella Compton Dickinson
Instiute of Mental Health,
Nottingham, UK
JOURNEY'S END: RAGE OR RECONCILIATION
Adshead (2012) states that forensic patients have frequently suffered psychological
harm in their childhood. Compton Dickinson (2006; 2013, pp.154–
166) demonstrates howperverse adult responses develop from damaging
childhood experiences which lead to dissociation from painful emotions, the
blunting of emotional recognition, the formation of dysfunctional patterns
of relating and callous responses, ultimately leading to harm through enactments
of rage and the inability to mourn.
Mourning is a process that involves emotional relatedness to self and others.
The catalyst for coming to terms with feelings of loss can be elicited through
music. Music therapy is an expressive psychotherapy to help patients improve
their mental health; within a therapeutic relationship, patient and therapist
collaborate in jointly-creating music to enable the expression of troubled
thoughts, memories and feelings (Davis, Gfeller&Thaut, 2008). For patients
receiving treatment in forensic psychiatric settings there are risks of offence
re-enactment that are symbolically enacted and visibly witnessed during
jointly –created musical improvisation. Perseveration is a common phenomenon
because of unconscious avoidance of endings and the associations with
killing and death. Thus, there are risks of harm to Music Therapists and the
need for an evidence –based, context specific model which can be integrated
into Multi-disciplinary treatment pathways.
This paper willprovides guidance on the general use of music in forensic
settings towards resolving grief, withdescription of risks and what works in
terms of structures and freedom in an evidence-based, time-limitedmanualised
model called Group Cognitive Analytic Music Therapy(Compton Dickinson
(2006; 2013; 2015; 2017)
PARALLEL SESSION / Family, Groups and Society
61