Korean Music Therapy Students’ Experience of Group Music Therapy: A Qualitative Case Study

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative case study is to describe the in-depth experiences of Korean students undergoing group music therapy. Seven students participated in eight consecutive weeks of group music therapy. The researcher collected and triangulated three data resources: individual interview transcripts, participant journals, and audiotaped sessions. The data were analyzed using the case study method and peer debriefing was conducted for trustworthiness. The four emergent themes and six categories were as follows: (1) Discovering one’s self (categories: what it means to be “me,” learning about self), (2) Inside group music therapy (categories: various responses to experiencing non-directive group, two different sides of experiencing silence, feeling a sense of safety and acceptance, sharing difficult experience with one’s own family), (3) Musical experience as a way to explore emotions, and (4) What learned through books became real. The results indicated that the student therapists’ experiences were linked to their personal development, unique experience of group music therapy dynamics, musical experience as an emotional container, and clinical development. Finally, it is recommended that cultural adaptations are made by providing both structure and space for Korean students to express themselves.

Critical pedagogy in the undergraduate music therapy curriculum: A grounded theory study of music therapy educators

“…Truasheim ( 2014) also explored music therapy with specific racial identities. Reflections or experiences of music therapists include literature from several authors with various racial or ethnic identities (Hadley, 2013b;Kim, 2011) or focus on a specific cultural or racial group (Lin, 2014;So, 2019). It is unclear whether implementing strategies specific to ethnic or racial identities ultimately benefits service users, how frequently music therapy educators are implementing these strategies, and to what extent music therapists seek continuing education related to gaining more knowledge or skills of cultural or racial groups.…”

The Possibility of Using Music Therapy to Treat Depression and Anxiety Among University Students

“…Music not only becomes popular among people that most of them listen to music for relaxing and inspiring themselves but also frequently to be used in the field of psychology as a solution to relieve depression or anxiety. In order to solve this problem, music therapy developed into different types of theories and treatments, such as behavioral approaches, psychotherapeutic and psychoanalytic approaches, client-centered therapy, and transpersonal therapy [3]. This research is inferred from several different essays and compared with current situations of students in universities to find better methods to treat students with mental illness by using music.…”