What is Focused Music Imagery (FMI)?
Focused Music imagery is a modified technique for Guided Imagery and Music, developed by Frances Goldberg.
It is used in music psychotherapy and counselling session.
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Through a brief period of deep music listening and exploration (3-7 mins), it helps one to enhance self-awareness, by realising inner self, emotions, physical and spiritual needs.
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It acts in a way to awake and observe what the psychic needs briefly, recognising oneself in a pleasant pacing . The therapist selects suitable music as a co-therapy to explore inner self to enhance personal growth.
Music Therapist discusses with you about your present status, mutually decide your goals and focus of the session.
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The session will start with brief relaxation, induce your subconscious mind through brief music listening. You may draw if any image appears, and express yourself through your feeling and sensation from the associated image.
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The therapist will interact with you after the music listening, facilitates you to understand your experience and implement them in the reality.
The appearance of the image reveals your relationship with your inner self, showing your unique feeling and perception.
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You may have inspired with new ideas or creativity, having a new perspective and understand toward your life and face the future challenges.
What is Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music (GIM)?
GIM is a music-centered, consciousness-expanding therapy developed by Helen Bonny.
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She was Inspired by a mystical experience while playing the violin. Then, she felt called to bring others to the healing power of music. She used her unique understanding of music in the early 1970s at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, as part of the federal government’s research into the consciousness-expanding effects of LSD.
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It became evident to her that the music itself was its own agent of change. This realization led her to continue to develop the Bonny Method. Therapists trained in the GIM choose classical music sequences (music listening last from 20-45 minutes) that stimulate journeys of the imagination.
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Experiencing imagery in this way facilitates clients’ integration of mental, emotional, physical and spiritual aspects of well-being.
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In a session lasting up to two hours, you and your therapist discuss your current life situation, set goals for your work together, and establish a focus for the session.
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After a guided relaxation, you then listen to music selected by the therapist to address the themes that arose. You verbalize the images, feelings, sensations, memories, and any awareness evoked by the music, allowing them to become a vehicle for exploring deeper states of consciousness.
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Your therapist interacts verbally with you to help you develop and expand your imagery experiences. At the close of the music, your facilitator assists your return from the deepened state and reinforces your insights that arose during the exploration.
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Your music and imagery experiences are reflections of you and are unique to your personal relationships, feelings, and personality. You may have glimpses of transpersonal inspiration that both challenge and reinforce your sense of who you are and who you can become.
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Your creativity may be awakened. You may gain new perspectives on your life issues and may feel empowered to address them with renewed energy
(above information is quoted from Association of Music & Imagery)
What is Music Breathing (MB)?
Music breathing is an adaptation of the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music, developed by Dr. Dag Körlin.
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This originally designed for anyone with traumatic stress, where there is a dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). It can also be used for clients without dysregulation, such as adjustment disorders, prolonged grief and developmental crises and for self-actualization.
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At first, you will be taught how to practice the silence breathing, done by focusing on the mental image of a small breathing volume, the Breathing Center.
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Then, your therapist will select music to company your practice of the silence breathing, encouraging to match the volume and the pace of the breathing with the tempo and volume of the music. Music breathing can also allow you to imagine music within the breathing center.
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Mandala drawing is required in all Music Breathing stages. You are asked to focus the drawing on the experience of the breathing space, with the circle as a reference. This is useful to process your music breathing experience.
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Your therapist will discuss and process the mandala image with you.
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You are required to practice home sessions in your daily life, in addition to office sessions.​ These are implicit skills, learned via the body through repetition. You are encouraged to draw images of your home sessions and bring them back to the office, to process together with the therapist.
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