Reading the Music and Understanding the Therapeutic Process: Documentation, Analysis and Interpretation of Improvisational Music Therapy

Abstract

This article is concerned primarily with the challenges of presenting clinical material from improvisational music therapy. My aim is to propose a model for the transcription of music therapy material, or “musicotherapeutic objects” (comparable to Bion’s “psychoanalytic objects”), which preserves the integrated “gestalt” of the musical experience as far as possible, whilst also supporting detailed analysis and interpretation. Unwilling to resort to use of visual documentation, but aware that many important indicators in music therapy are non-sounding, I propose a richly annotated score, where traditional music notation is integrated with graphic and verbal additions, in order to document non-sounding events. This model is illustrated within the context of a clinical case with a high functioning autistic woman. The four transcriptions, together with the original audio tracks, present significant moments during the course of music therapy, attesting to the development of the dyadic relationship, with reference to John Bowlby’s concept of a “secure base” as the most appropriate dynamic environment for therapy.