What is Music Psychotherapy?
- When a person listens to music s/he connects to the language expressed in the music; the rhythm, the melody, the instruments and the tonality are some of the elements of this language. This language evokes a response from within the listener.
- The responses will vary depending on the listener’s mood at that time, the perceptions, or understandings, about his/her life and what is occurring at this time.
- Used as a therapeutic modality the client, in a deeply relaxed state, listens to specifically programmed music selections. The client may experience visual imagery like dream states, emotional responses, memories or somatic [body] responses as evoked by the music.
- This process is known as the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music (BMGIM).