23.7. 1993 Vitoria-Gasteiz / Spain - World Federation of Music Therapy

short period of time. The method has been accepted by
the patients.
The duration of each session of the music therapy is
one and a half hour, of which 20 minutes is listening to
music played on technical instruments (gram,
cassetofon etc.), while the remaining part of time is
devoted to discussions. The division of the time can be
change according to the aims of the treatment.
As the music therapy is a part of the complex treatment
of the mental disorders and the group is not selected in
accordance to its own requirements no common plan of
its influence on the patients can be accepted. Therefore
the main accent is laid upon the microstucture of each
separate session which itself is structured on the one
hand according to the experience from the previous
sessions and, on the other hand, according to the group
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dynamics and the concrete therapeutic situation.
Therefore no constant music compositions (for instance
for a separate number of sessions) are used. The music
therapist decides what the music programme will be in
his conversations with the patients (according to the
main theme) or shortly before the session when the
terapeutic team has discussed which of their
experiences should be provoked. Instrumental music is
applied mainly in order to avoid suggestions as a result
from the text and the restrictions in the nonmusical
associations of the patients which follow them. The
initial practice was to use mainly preclasic, clasic
romantic, and neoromantic authers and rarely jazz. Part
of the patien with lower music culture start to feel
unconfortable and lose their interest to the sessions, in
this sessions. When discussing their feelings after
listening to unknown slmfonic compositions, they say
that it is difficult for them to make associations, that they
feel tense and the only thing they wanted is to finish. In