Brief online Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) sessions for university students: Urgency and surrender

Abstract

The global pandemic has led many music therapists to reconceive their practices for online delivery. This article describes a small-scale study investigating the provision of brief online Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) sessions for university students. Three participants agreed to be interviewed about their experience of the sessions and a descriptive phenomenological approach was adopted to identify the essential features of the phenomenon using phenomenological reduction from rich descriptions. Individual themes were identified and then classified into global themes of purpose, guiding, music selection, creative resources and outcomes. Two essential features were identified as shared by all three of the university students, which was a sense of urgency leading to involvement and the experience of surrender to the music and the process.