INTRODUCTION: This master thesis is the end of my 5 year master in music therapy at Aalborg University. The thesis takes the internship at the 9th semester as its starting point. The internship took place at a special school in the autumn 2019. Through the thesis I seek to describe and understand the interaction between four children who participated in group music therapy through the internship. I attempt to describe and understand what I in the thesis term as caring meeting moments. I attempt this through using neuroaffective developmental psychology as the theoretical frame of reference, and through analysis of the video recordings from the group music therapy course. Via neuroaffective developmental psychology I present the client group children with disabilities, I then give an overall outline of music therapy, group therapy, and of neuroaffective developmental psychology, and explain essential concepts used in the thesis.
METHOD: The thesis is approached as a qualitative case study with a hermeneutic approach. The data is approached inductively. The pre-understanding of the researcher is described in the beginning of the thesis, and the hermeneutic process that goes on when the researcher moves back and forth from the data to theory. This gives the researcher a new understanding of the data. It is described that the clinician and the researcher is the same person but at the same time two different roles. Ethical considerations are then described, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), supervision through the internship course, and retrieval of informed statements of consent.
DATA: The data material includes video recordings from the group music therapy course from the internship. The children who participated in the group music therapy are 6-7 years old and are within the client group children with disabilities. The four children are in the same class. The focus of the group music therapy course was to practice turntaking and joint attention. The children attended music therapy once a week for 14 weeks. The sessions lasted for 30-45 minutes, and had a structured schedule, which was the same from session to session.
ANALYSIS: The analysis consists of six steps: Step 1) Data collection. This took place during the internship period where all 14 group music therapy sessions were recorded. Informed statements of consent from the children’s parents was collected. Step 2) Data selection. I saw all recordings of the 14 sessions and selected 54 videoclips afterwards. These were characterized as distinctive moments. Step 3) Video analysis part 1. The 54 clips were transcribed and coded. Step 4) Video analysis part 2. One of the 54 clips was selected for further analysis. This clip is from the 12th session from one specific activity called The Spider activity. I made an in-depth transcription of the clip and color coded the transcription afterwards. Step 5) Analysis of the interaction between the participants. Using the transcription of the selected clip and the codes I made an analysis of the interaction between the participants. Step 6) Synthesis. I summarized the results from the analysis and I related this to the theoretical frame of reference.
RESULTS: Through the analysis of the selected videoclip I found that caring meeting moments are part of the group music therapy course, and that they consist of musical elements such as rhythm, melody, song and voice, mimics, body language, and joint focus. Repetitions are an important part of the music therapy which makes it safe for the children. The caring meeting moments consist of empathy, affect attunement, are alike the present moments, and have a form of vitality. The music therapist’s empathic, nonverbal way of being is essential. It is also important that the music therapist has an asymmetric responsibility while being in a symmetric relation with the children in the group. The music therapist thus acts as the ‘leader of the caravan’ in the group, framing a situation where everyone participate in the activity equally in a symmetric relation.
DISCUSSION: The results of the thesis are discussed in relation to the client group, music therapy and therapy practice. The importance of the music therapist’s way of being and the importance of empathy are discussed. The topics of the thesis are discussed in the light of the current situation of the Covid-19 lockdown of society. Pros and cons of the method and the methodology are discussed.
CONCLUSION: Through the thesis I have described and presented an understanding of group music therapy as a frame for developing empathy among children with disabilities.