Objective: The aim of this master thesis is to explore how music therapeutic improvisations can inform and shed light on an anorectic patient’s self-expression and interaction with a music therapist.
Background: There is a lack of literature exploring the effect of music therapy with people suffering from an eating disorder. It is therefore important to explore the possibilities and relevance of music therapy by conducting qualitative data. During the 9th semester of the Aalborg University music therapy education I did an internship, which took place at Eating Disorders Centre U2 – an inpatient unit, part of the child and adolescent psychiatry in Roskilde, Denmark. At the unit I was able to collect data from the music therapy sessions.
Data collection: Four improvisations from an individual music therapy session in clinical practice are used as data.
Method: To carry out this research a phenomenological music analysis is used within a qualitative and hermeneutic approach. Both the syntactic, semantic and ontological levels are analyzed. Furthermore a graphic notation and reflections upon the interaction between the patient and the music therapist are presented.
Findings: Throughout the analysis, different musical parameters turned out to be relevant to interpret in order to understand the patient’s self-expression and interaction with the therapist. The parameters that turned out to be relevant were playing patterns, tonality/key, time signature, tempo, pulse and striking. The analysis of the parameters illustrates both an insecure, vulnerable, angry and frustrated aspect of a self-expression and a calm, safe and exploring part of a self-expression. In relation to the interaction between the patient and the therapist the analysis of the musical parameters indicates that the patient is able to express dynamics from other relationships and that the patient trusts the therapist and relies on the relationship between the patient and the therapist. The safe relationship with the music therapist is likely to offer the opportunity to explore difficult and vulnerable feelings within a safe environment.
Conclusion: The phenomenological music analysis revealed varied understandings of both the self-expression and interaction between the patient and therapist.

Keywords: Music therapy, anorexia, eating disorder, improvisations, self-expression, interaction, music therapist, playing patterns.