0000000000347737
AUTHOR
Ourania Liarmakopoulou
Favouring emotional processing in improvisational music therapy through resonance frequency breathing: a single-case experimental study with a healthy client
Resonance frequency breathing (RFB) is a form of slow breathing at around six breaths/min, whose immediate effects are to substantially increase heart rate variability (HRV) and to reduce stress levels. Since RFB has already been successfully used on its own to treat various emotional disorders, we wanted to evaluate its effect on emotional processing when used as a preparatory intervention in improvisational music therapy. To do so, we performed a single-subject experimental study with a healthy participant. We hypothesised that RFB would serve both as an emotional catalyst and emotional regulator, the actual outcome depending on the client’s current issues and needs. The study consisted o…
Melodic structure and inner self in clinical improvisation
This study investigates the analogies between the melodic evolution within clinical improvisation and the shifts in the core self, across the continuum of music therapy process. This investigation is facilitated by a hypothesis; that musical shifts in improvisation’s structure precede psychological shifts in improviser’s self during therapy. Melodic improvisations created within the Integrative Improvisational Music Therapy (IIMT) model (Erkkilä, 2016) are investigated as proposed in the Therapeutic Narrative Analysis (Aldridge & Aldridge, 2008): certain melodic episodes from significant improvisations are analyzed with the Repertory Grid Method (Kelly, 1995) and patterns of the musical dat…