Music listening, Imagery and Creativity in Psychiatry

The Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music (BMGIM) together with its adaptations (GIM), deal in symbolic imagery evoked through music listening. GIM belongs to a group of Creative Arts Therapies (CATs) which are distinct from the psychodynamic and the cognitive oriented therapies. CATs deal with symbolic, multidimensional imagery, manifesting not only the psychodynamics of the client but also the client's mythological and archetypal make-up as well as transpersonal experiences. The book builds on clinical experience and outcome data from a base of more than 400 psychiatric patients with post traumatic and other stress disorders. The first chapter is a PhD thesis, "Creative Arts Therapies in Psychiatry", evaluating "Spektrum", a multimodal group program within general psychiatry. The thesis contains a separate article, "Traumatic Imagery in BMGIM", about music choice for PTSD treatment. The chapter on "Music Breathing" describes an integration of music listening with meditative breathing for Complex PTSD and dissociative disorders. The book is of interest for GIM and Music therapists as well as other Arts therapists.