Music Therapy Today - World Federation of Music Therapy

Horesh, T. (2006) “Music is My Whole Life” - The many meanings of music in addicts’ lives. Music Therapy Today
(Online) Vol.VII (2) 291-317. available at http://musictherapyworld.net
NARRATIVE
INTERVIEWS
needs, telling me what they felt I wanted to hear? Or was I the first thera-
pist actually interested in this aspect of their lives, which was, until now,
just one more of their underground activities, not something one tended
to share with their social worker? I put the question to one of my inter-
viewees, who said : when you have one hour a week with your social
worker, and your life is falling apart, you want to use drugs – you’re not
going to talk to her about music. But that doesn’t mean its not a very
important part of my life.
I then decided to interview addicts that I personally knew, that had partic-
ipated in my groups in the 2 therapeutic communities I worked in. It
wasn’t difficult to choose: those clients that lingered in the room, after
the group was over, to tell me about their passion for certain kinds of
music; or expressed strong disinterest in any music but their own.
All the people I approached in my request to interview them, agreed on
the spot, even though I suggested that they take time to think about it. My
feeling, strengthened by things said in the interviews, was that they saw
the interview as a chance for personal attention from me (all our thera-
peutic work had been in groups), a chance to talk about, and gain deeper
understanding of their relationship with music, and contribute to the
understanding of people like them (many of them expressed surprise that
the “university professors” were at all interested in this subject)
My relationship with all interviewees, and knowledge of the culture of
addiction and recovery, enabled a natural introduction into the data col-
lecting stage of the research. I felt that our former mutual experiences, in
the music therapy groups and other common activities in the therapeutic
community’s life, made for a common language and relaxed atmosphere
in all the interviews. Most of them, unavoidably, included discussions
Choosing methodology 304