“My Heart Opens and My Spirit Flies”: Musical Exemplars of Psychological Flexibility in Health and Healing

Abstract

Across several disciplines in the health and social sciences, psychological flexibility is gaining in influence and explanatory power as a conceptual frame to better understand diverse cultural and clinical contexts of health and healing. Although music as a potential primer of psychological flexibility is seldom considered in extant research, key contributions have framed aspects of music's potential efficacy to promote health and healing within the construct of psychological flexibility. Building from this research and from studies in psychology and anthropology concerned with flexibility, and based on field research I conducted in the Pamir Mountain region of Tajik Badakhshan, I explore how the preeminent genre of Pamiri devotional music, known as maddoh, facilitates or primes psychological flexibility for participants. In this case study, priming a state of psychological flexibility is accomplished by engaging specific cultural exemplars found in the natural and built environments, the local belief system, poetry, prayer, and music, creating a multilayered network of flexibility.[Psychological Flexibility, Medical Ethnomusicology, Tajikistan, Music, Religion] This article emerges from a broader research program in medical ethnomusicology, an innovative field of integrative research and applied practice concerned with music, medicine, health, healing, and culture. Building from a holistic conceptual framework that comprises the biological, psychological, social, emotional, and spiritual factors of health, healing, illness, and disease, medical ethnomusicology aims to advance knowledge with respect to the efficacy of music, sound, and related practices in healing and to apply that knowledge for the benefit of people. As a field at the nexus of the holistic, integrative, complementary, and alternative medicine discourse, medical ethnomusicology shares many of the concerns of psychological anthropology. Medical ethnomusicology draws on a diverse array of fields across the health, physical and social sciences, music research, music performance, and the expressive arts and is oriented to integrating insights from research with indigenous and traditional cultural practices and with the efforts of practitioners in the areas of wellness and healing (see Koen

The Ethics and Aesthetics of Care

“…The particular aesthetic contours of specific healing genres may also help care recipients to embody the psychological flexibility to disengage, reflect on one's options, and select the best option (Hinton 2008, p. 124;Hinton & Kirmayer 2017). For instance, Koen (2013) describes Islamic Pamiri devotional music in Tajikistan by analyzing the patterned repetition of rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic elements. These culturally specific patterned repetitions provide poetic-musical frames that allow listeners to quickly shift among multiple perspectives on a single subject.…”

Music and Acculturation: Using Culture-focused Music Therapy to Address the Adverse Effects of Acculturative Stress

“…Still, though experimentation with music has yielded positive results in healing potential, and though there has been a global history of music as a form of healing, research had historically seldom considered music as an agent of psychological healing (Koen, 2013). However in more recent years, music as a therapeutic intervention and as MUSIC AND ACCULTURATION 11 a healing process has seen an increase in public attention and within the research field.…”

“…To add to the scarce research involving music and psychological flexibility, Koen In results of the study, Koen (2013) concluded that maddoh music was in fact shown to be a successful primer of psychological flexibility, citing the form and structure of the music and its interaction with energy and individual spirituality. Interestingly, Koen (2013) found that the very construction of maddoh music, such as the song form, distinctive rhythm, sonic structures, and spiritual and mystical meanings of maddoh, could actually drive an individual from a state of psychological inflexibility to a state of psychological flexibility. Research has shown that music can interact with the mind and body in similarly curious ways (Sacks, 2008).…”

“…An important research component of the Koen (2013) Additionally, this study provides an interesting perspective of diverse forms of music being effectively utilized to promote psychological health. Many kinds of music from various cultures, whether classical, jazz, contemporary, maddoh or nearly anything in-between, have been shown to interact with the mind and the body in fascinating ways (Grocke et al 2009;Koen, 2013;Sacks, 2008;Rickard & McFerran, 2012). This study demonstrates yet another variety of culturally specific music positively impacting psychological health via simple engagement with that form of music.…”

“…If diverse genres of music can elicit diverse healing effects, then music in itself, regardless of genre might be a healing therapeutic intervention. To this effect, Koen (2013) states, Certainly, the potential for music to effect health changes, either through the dynamic indicated by psychological flexibility, or perhaps framed by other concepts or practices, is not limited to one genre of music or one culture. Indeed, diverse musical forms and practices can promote flexibility to engender a state from which health changes or healing can arise.…”